Beware My Power
by DragonMasterFlex
Summary: In the Universe, there are 3600 Sectors protected by the Police organization known as the Green Lantern Corps. After almost decade of service, the Green Lantern Naruto Uzumaki is recommissioned to Sector 2814, home to planet Earth. These are his stories.
1. Prologue: A New Calling

**Summary:** In the Universe, there are 3600 Sectors protected by the Military/Police organization known as the Green Lantern Corps. After almost decade of service, the Green Lantern Naruto Uzumaki is recommissioned to Earth's Sector, Sector 2814. These are his stories.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything

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><p><strong>Prologue: A New Calling<strong>

The Green Lantern known as Tomar-Re utilized the last of his fading strength to crawl through the wreckage of his space ship towards the console where he stowed his lantern battery. He knew he did not have much longer before death would take hold; the injuries he sustained from his battle with Sinestro were far too severe. The only saving grace was that the damage sustained to his hyperspace drive sent him away from the target destination of his home sector and off into another sector of the universe, buying him some time before Sinestro would be able to pick up his trail. The ship managed to auto pilot itself into crash landing on a planet with known intelligent life forms, he just had no idea which one it was. It really didn't matter which planet, as long there was someone who could carry on his mission. With great effort, he finally reached the front of the ship, and opened the console protecting the lantern battery.

"Must…keep…safe…" grunted Tomar as he held his ring out towards the Lantern Battery. A small burst of charge emitted from the ring and into the Lantern Battery, sending it back to Oa for safe keeping. He then removed the ring from his finger and held it out in front of his body, "Go…you must find another before it is too late. Choose…well…"

In obedience to its wielder's last request, the ring glowed with its standard green light as it levitated itself into the air and shot off across the skies in search of a new wielder to carry on the legacy.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

They were supposed to be the next generation of legends, the elite Shinobi to carry on the torch of will of fire. Konoha instead had other things in mind for Naruto Uzumaki and Team 10. His team had been fast-tracked from the ages of six to become genin, Naruto Uzumaki, Shikamaru Nara, and Neji Hyuuga. The trio had too much raw potential to waste in the academy with war on Konoha's doorsteps. Taught by the Copy Nin, Kakashi Hatake, they were all chunin by the age of seven. The 4th Great Shinobi War kicked off less than six months later. By the age of nine they like their sensei were feared names in the Bingo Book, and War Heroes to their home village. Seven years later amidst the 5th Great Shinobi War, the four man squad rumored to be on the verge of becoming the greatest that Konoha had ever produced, was betrayed by the very village they served. New leadership was in power, leadership that was tired of fighting wars. This new leadership sold away the bounties on the heads of its greatest team in addition to the unofficial fifth member of the squad, Kurama the Kyuubi no Kitsune, to the shadow organization known as Akatsuki in exchange for the organization's man power to wipe out the enemy alliance once and for all. They were all drugged and poisoned during a staged mission briefing with an ANBU commander. While his teammates went peacefully in their sleep from poison, the paralyzed Naruto was forced to endure the excruciating process of having Kurama ripped out of his seal. The extraction process lasted for over a week before the blond was left for dead amongst the rest corpses of the shadow organizations captured Jinchurikki. Only he had somehow managed to become the first one to survive the extraction process, and made his escape through the underground tunnels of the Akatsuki hideout.

He could barely keep himself upright as he moved against the wall of the underground cavern. Still, he continued to struggle forward, inch by inch and step by step. Naruto Uzumaki didn't understand the meaning of the word 'quit'. Even after having the tailed beast he safeguarded for sixteen years ripped away from his body, he wouldn't simply roll over die. If he was going out, it would be on his own terms. His chakra now destabilized, he was literally a ticking time bomb. Despite this, all hope was not lost. He could slip into the shadows of his late godfather's spy network and make his way to snow country. According to the last report Jiraiya passed on to him before he was killed in action six months ago, his teammate Tsunade, the last living Sannin, was hiding out there and operating a medical practice under an assumed name. If anyone could help him get back in business, it would be her. Besides she owed him and his godfather for helping to cover her tracks and keep her out of the war. From there he would find a way to team up with anyone who could help him serve some payback to both Konoha and the Akatsuki. Maybe if they hadn't sold out his teammates too, he would have simply vanished for good like Tsunade. But there was a price to be paid for the cold blooded murder of his three comrades who were his brothers in everything except blood. Caught up in his thoughts, the blond didn't realize he'd exited the tunnel and was now above ground once again.

The blond took a moment to pause and let out a momentary sigh of relief in honor of his small victory. He'd finally the reached an exit from the maze like underground network of caves and tunnels. At the first sight of daylight in what seemed like forever, he closed his eyes took a deep breath of fresh air. Unfortunately, the moment he closed his eyes he nearly toppled over in surprise as what felt like a rock nailed him in nose.

"Ow!" grunted the blond as he grabbed the offended appendage with his left hand. His eyes opened to glance around the area so see, who had chucked the rock, but he found and sensed no one in the area.

"I must be losing it, big time." muttered Naruto as he glanced towards the ground looking for the rock that hit him. To his surprise, he found that it was not a rock at hit him, but an oddly shaped green ring. He picked up the ring and examined it in confusion for a moment before shrugging off the absurdity of it all.

"Maybe, this is a sign that I should start up my own super fancy, super-secret organization with weird rings. Our mission, to destroy all other super-secret organizations!" joked the blond as he slipped the ring onto his finger.

The moment he did, the ring suddenly flashed brightly with green light before the same light then washed over Naruto's body. His raggedy worn down outfit was now replaced with something completely new. A black long sleeve shirt made of durable flexible material now clung to his upper body, the top of it stretching up his neck and over his face up to his nose like a mask. On his shoulders were larger green versions of the lantern symbol found on the wrong. A green flak jacket sat atop that with an even larger version of the Lantern symbol sporting across the back. In place of his forehead protector was a green bandanna that fully covered his hair, with a black the metal plate in the front also displaying the lantern symbol. A pair of black cargo pants with green stripes running down the side along with a pair of green and black boots completed the outfit.

"Just what in the world is this thing?" muttered the blond as he stared at the ring with amazement and a hint of fear. As soon as he said this, the hand with the ring suddenly shot up and he was enveloped in the green light again before suddenly being propelled across the sky.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

"How do you stop this crazy thing!" yelled Naruto as the lands below him blurred past at high speeds. Eventually the ring managed to bring him to stop, leaving him hovering or the crash site of Tomar-Re's space ship. Once he calmed down from the startling trip across the skies, Naruto took stock of situation.

"This must be where you came from, someone sent for help." mused the blond.

At first instinct he thought it was a lab, but as he took a closer look at the whole scene he realized that whatever this thing was, it crash landed there from the sky. Instinctively the blond somehow knew how to lower himself down to the ground to investigate the wreckage and find who had ever sent the ring to him as a help beacon. Stepping the wreckage he made his way to what once had been the front of the spaceship where he heard the grunts and groans of a person. He found someone who looked some sort cross a variety of Orochimaru bloodline experiments gone wrong. It was the only way he could describe the man that appeared to be some bizarre combination between a bird and a fish.

"The ring has successfully chosen another." wheezed Tomar-Re he looked up at Naruto.

"Hey, save your strength man." advised Naruto. "I don't know what village you're from, but I'll get you some kind of help."

Tomar-Re pushed his hand away and shook his head, "It's too late for me. It's up to you now, to carry on the legacy. You are the Green Lantern!"

With his last words said and last mission complete, the body of Tomar-Re glowed with green light before suddenly fading away into nothingness as he passed away.

"You can't leave yet! I don't understand! What legacy? What is this Green Lantern?" cried out Naruto, but Tomar-Re was gone, leaving only an empty suit behind.

Naruto ran his hand over his head as he let out a sigh, "What the hell am I supposed to do now?"

"Tomar? Tomar-Re?" called out a feminine voice.

As Naruto turned around he found the source of the voice. The lantern battery that Tomar-Re had previously sent away for safe keeping reappeared in front of him. Curiosity quickly winning out over any other emotion, he reached out and touched the glowing lantern battery. The glowing light of the battery enveloped him and they both vanished in a flash of light.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Naruto looked around in confusion as he appeared in the center of the Meeting Hall on the Planet Oa. His eyes roamed from the large lantern symbol engraved on the floor beneath him, to the one on the wall behind the Guardians, before finally resting on the Guardians themselves.

"No, it's the Shinobi, Naruto Uzumaki." spoke one of the male Guardians.

"We are the Guardians of the Universe." informed the female Guardian whose voice he first heard calling for Tomar-Re through the ring.

"Welcome to Oa, Naruto Uzumaki. Unfortunately, your arrival confirms our worst fears. Tomar-Re, Green Lantern of Sector 2813 is dead." explained the other Guardian as they all bowed their heads for a moment in sadness for the loss of one of their chosen.

Naruto kept silent, figuring it was better to let them explain, _'Just what have I gotten myself into?'_

"The Green Lantern core exists to promote order and justice throughout the universe. Recruits from all sentient interplanetary species have answered our call." as the Guardian spoke, images of the various current lanterns appeared around Naruto. "Now you are one of the chosen, in fact the first of your planet to be chosen."

"We have entrusted each Green Lantern with a great power." continued the female Guardian. "All have reward that trust except for one, Sinestro."

"He's the reason, why I was called." asserted Naruto as the image of Sinestro appeared in front of him.

"Yes, when we confirmed that he was unfit to wield the power, we removed it."

"But, he somehow found himself another source of power."

"Tomar-Re was not the first of his victims, and with each ring Sinestro destroys, he becomes even more powerful."

Naruto scratched the back of his head, "Are you sure I'm the right guy for the job? Surely there is some one more suited. My old village certainly didn't believe in me that much; otherwise I probably wouldn't even be here."

"The ring has chosen you, Naruto Uzumaki." replied the Guardian leader.

The real reason Naruto was hesitant to accept the responsibility of the ring, was the he knew that there would be no vengeance for the villages betrayal of his old team. Deep down he also knew that going down that path would be only to fulfill his selfish desire for revenge, if he really wanted to honor his friends and all those who helped shape him into the person he was today, there was only once choice to be made.

Naruto looked down at ring, "Ero-Sennin and the old man always says I was destined to do great things, I guess someday I'll get them for that. Alright, I'm in. First though, Sinestro is going eventually follow the trail back to the crash site, looking for this ring. I was wondering..."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

A couple of days later Sinestro finally did manage to find the trail of Tomar-Re and made his way to the crash site of his ship. Sinestro smirked has he found the empty Green Lantern uniform, "An old lantern never dies, he only fades away..."

He sent out of beam of energy from his ring to search the suit and found a ring inside, "And here's the prize. I guess even the ring couldn't find a wielder amongst this planet full of brutes and savages."

He pulled the ring back towards himself before grabbing the ring and slipping it onto his finger.

"At last, the power is mine!" declared Sinestro as he began to summon the energy of the stolen ring into his own. However, instead the familiar sensation from the surge of power flowing into him, he double over in pain as a surge of electricity ran through his body before he vanished in a flash of Green Light. When finally regained consciousness only minutes later, he found himself prisoner inside an Oan Sciencell. The ex-lantern seethed with rage as he realized he'd been duped by some rookie green lantern leaving a fake ring behind.

"YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS LANTERN! YOU'LL PAY!" he roared from his cell.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Inside the Oan training facility, rookie Green Lantern Naruto Uzumaki suddenly sneezed in the middle of a training exercise, losing control of his constructs. He was rewarded with a slap to the back of the head courtesy of his instructor, Katma Tui for loosing focus.

"A Lantern maintains focus and control under all circumstances, Uzumaki! Now do it again, from the beginning!" barked Katma.

"Yes, Mam!" replied Naruto, inwardly cursing whoever was talking about him.

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><p>AN: Yeah, I'm still alive and kicking. Starting the comeback with something new to get the creative juices flowing. A different take on the Naruto/Justice League crossover with Naruto as the Green Lantern. I'll be making the rounds to my other stories while getting this one off to a good start. An update for So Not the Dattebayo will be coming first from that pile since it's the closest to being done. Next up for this story will be a jump to the Justice League Origins plot line.


	2. Origins I

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything

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><p><strong>Origins I<br>**

**_Approx 10 years later- Clark Kent's Apartment, Metropolis_**

Clark Kent stood over the sink of his bathroom, splashing his face with cool water. He had been roughly awakened by another sudden intense flash of images through his mind. The flashes had started over six months ago when, he ran into Batman investigating the sabotage of the deep space monitoring network. Recently these flashes had become more intense and more frequent, as if they were a warning of some kind. He moved out of the bathroom and into the kitchen where he grabbed a bottle of water from his refrigerator.

_'If only I could get a grasp on what these images mean...'_ thought Superman as he sipped from the bottle of water.

**_The Bat Cave, Gotham_**

Batman worked deep into night as he tried to piece together the puzzle of the attacks on the deep space monitoring network. He had already isolated most of the key people involved, but he couldn't figure out what their objective was. They weren't actually gaining anything from their activities.

"Brewed a fresh pot, Master Wayne." interrupted Alfred as he replaced Bruce's empty cup of coffee.

"Thanks, Alfred." replied Bruce as he took a sip. The brief break from working away at the computer caused him to see a new connection in the data he was going through.

"Looks like I need to pay a visit to Star Labs soon..." muttered the Dark Knight as he got back to work.

_**Dining Hall, Green Lantern Corps Head Quarters, Planet Oa**_

Green Lantern's from far and wide had crowded the mess hall for one reason alone. The possibility to uncover what the bounty hunter Lobo had deemed the 8th great mystery of the Universe, seeing what lied beneath the face mask of Naruto Uzumaki. Today the masses were not to be denied; they had even ensured that seven bowls of his favorite meal were provided to the oblivious blond.

A spiky blond haired member of the green lantern corps could be found feasting on bowl after bowl of ramen in the back of the dining hall. The veteran member of the core showed no signs of slowing down anytime soon, it had been some time since he was able to enjoy his favorite meal. As he finished slurping down his fifth bowl of ramen, the blond instinctively reached his fist out and bumped fists with Kilowog as he sat down next to him with his own tray piled high with food.

"Teme! What's up!" greeted Naruto.

"The usual, Poozer." replied Kilowog with shrug as he grabbed a seat.

In that brief moment, everyone had been distracted enough to turn greet Kilowog as well. By the time they turned back around to face Naruto, there were seven empty bowls stacked in front of the blond and his nose was now buried in a book.

Arisia wanted to rip her hair out, "I don't believe it! He did it again! Seven bowls in the blink of eye!"

A smug grin formed on Katma's face as she held her hand out to Arisia, "Pay up."

Galius Zed snickered as shook his head, "I told you it was a sucker bet."

John Stewart chuckled as he approached the group, "How many times do I have to tell you people that oblivious fool routine is all an act?"

Naruto just turned to his friend and eye-smiled at him, "I'm sorry? Did you say something? I wasn't paying attention. I was reflecting back on last week when I went well out of my way to bail you out against Sinestro, **again**."

"Hey, that's what friends are for." stated a smiling John as he grabbed the seat next to the bandanna covered blond. "You know, I've been looking all over for you. I should have known the ninja would be found in the mess hall pigging out."

"Stick it, marine. If you can find anything passing for decent food in Sector 2828, I'll eat my bandana." retorted Naruto.

"You know on Sarigon-5…" began Kilowog, but Naruto cut him off.

"I mean decent food for anyone who can pass as my species." clarified Naruto.

Kilowog shrugged, "Your loss."

John shook his head, "Intergalactic cuisine aside, you've been put up for reassignment."

Naruto jumped out of his seat, only to be stopped by John, "Where are you off to in such a hurry?"

"To get myself reassigned to floater duty, I have zero interest in my home sector. Yet, for some reason the Guardians keep trying to send me back there." growled Naruto.

"Calm down, hot-head. I wasn't the Guardians who asked for it, but me." informed John.

Naruto leveled John with a glare, "Remind me, why we're friends again?"

John raised his arms in a placating fashion, "Easy there, you're reassignment is to my home sector. I got moved and asked for you to replace me."

Naruto's glare morphed into a contemplative look, "Your sector, 2814? Home of planet Earth?"

John nodded, "Yes."

"The same planet Earth that home to both the best reading material and ramen in the known universe?" questioned Naruto again.

John nodded again, "Yes."

"The same planet Earth- "

A hand of energy suddenly formed from Katma's ring and smacked Naruto in the back of the head, "Hurry up, tell him you'll do it already."

"Is that anyway to treat your greatest student?" muttered Naruto.

"I think it it's obvious who her favorite is." quipped John.

Naruto smirked beneath his mask, "I just said I was best, not that she liked me the most. Plus, I hear that Rayner kid is pretty good. You might be her third best student now. You're too ridged Johnny-boy, always with the beams and bubbles!"

"You could stand to be a bit more flexible." mused Katma.

Naruto gave him a condescending pat on the shoulder, "Stick around kid, I'll show you the ropes."

John glared at him, "You've got to be kidding me...just get the hell out of here before I change my mind!"

"How many times to I have to tell you Stewart, you can't out Naruto-" began Galius Zed, only to be cut off by everyone simultaneously.

"Shut up, Zed!"

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Batman prided himself on being prepared for absolutely every scenario, but even he hadn't seen all of this coming. He'd intended to investigate Star Labs nearly a week ago, but separate crime sprees by Killer Croc and Two-Face kept him occupied in Gotham. By the time he managed to investigate Star Labs it was already too late. Almost immediately after his discovery that the deep space monitoring network was being controlled by non-human imposters, meteorites containing alien war machines began dropping in from outer space, targeting all major cities on the planet. Since it was now six months after UN decided to disarm the nuclear arms of all countries across the board, military forces were rendered ineffective in their attempts to defend cities. Batman decided to tail Superman to a secret government facility in search of answers, but only found more questions. Superman broke into the facility to free an imprisoned Martian named J'onn J'onzz, who had been the source of the intense flashes received by Superman for the past 6 months. J'onn had come to warn Earth of the incoming invasion, but was imprisoned by the government instead, allowing the invaders to get the jump on them. As they escaped the facility they were confronted by military men who turned out to be invaders in disguise. After a brief battle the trio tried to escape from the superior numbers of the enemy. Batman dragged the weakened Martian to his Bat-jet and placed him in the rear seat before sliding into the cockpit. Firing up the engines, he quickly took off as Superman provided cover from enemy fire before flying up alongside them.

"That was close." muttered Batman.

"We are not safe yet." replied J'onn as he alerted Batman to a squadron of incoming enemy aircraft.

Superman peeled away from the Bat-jet as Batman maneuvered to avoid the incoming enemy laser fire. Superman sped around to attack from behind and plowed right threw a pair of enemy ships before being struck by a laser blast. He dropped onto a canyon ledge below, out of commission for the moment. The Dark Knight used the terrain and his flying skills to knock three more alien ships from the sky, before the right wing of the jet was struck by enemy fire. Before Batman could hit the eject button, the ship was enveloped in a green glow and lowered to the ground. To Batman's surprise they were rescued by a trio of Green Lanterns all identical in appearance.

"It appears help has finally arrived." stated J'onn.

One of the lanterns lowered the ship safely to the ground while the other two returned fire with a pair of massive fuuma shuriken constructs. The spinning blades cut down about four ships just before Hawkgirl arrived and struck down a pair of ships with her mace.

"What's Hawkgirl doing here?" questioned a confused Batman. As far as he knew, she operated alone and nowhere near this area.

"I called for some aid." responded J'onn as he phased out of the ship and joined Superman and Hawkgirl in flight. Two of lanterns dispersed into green light and were absorbed back into the ring of the real Naruto as he joined them.

"I've been assigned to the sector for not even a week, and this is the third inter planetary invasion I've had to deal with." quipped Naruto. "You sure do know how to make a guy feel welcome."

The heroes split up and engaged the remaining ships via their preferred methods. J'onn became intangible and confused the alien fighters into shooting down one another. Naruto went back to slicing and dicing with his fuuma shuriken constructs. Hawkgirl hammered away at every enemy in her path with her mace. Superman used his strength to punch right through the ships or grab them throw them off course into the nearby cliff face. Batman watched from the ground, making sure his ship didn't take any more damage from falling debris. As Hawkgirl tried to shake one last fighter that was on her tail, Princess Diana of the Amazons finally arrived on the scene, destroying the fighter with one punch.

"Thanks." stated an impressed Hawkgirl.

While everyone except Naruto flew back to Batman and his jet, a red figured blurred across the landscape before stopping in front of Batman with the broken wing of the Bat-jet in his hands.

"Hey Bats! Think you might have dropped this." he greeted with a smirk.

His smirk quickly morphed into a look of shock before shifting into a cheesy grin as he caught sight of Diana, "Where have you been all my life?"

"Themyscira." replied Diana, oblivious to the true connotation of his question.

This threw Flash for a loop, "Huh?"

"Themyscira, the home of the female warrior culture of the Amazons? I thought that place was only myth." stated Hawkgirl.

"I assure you that it is as real as the land we stand on. I am Diana, Princess of the Amazons." responded Diana.

"Pinch me, I must be dreaming." muttered Flash before Superman elbowed him in the gut. "Ow!"

"Despite the protection by the gods given to my home, I felt I could not sit by idly as the rest of the world was in danger." declared Diana.

"It was good you arrived when you did." assured Superman.

"None of you arrived here by chance, I summoned you all telepathically." informed J'onn.

"I'm usually quick on the uptake, but will someone explain what in world is going on here?" questioned Flash.

Naruto landed next to Batman, having scanned some of the invader air crafts and corpses with ring to try and find some back ground information on the situation.

"My ring says there's nothing in the Lantern Database on these invaders. No Lanterns in this sector or any other have encountered them before." informed Naruto.

Everyone turned to J'onn, the only source of intel, for an explanation. The Martian delivered an impromptu debriefing while Superman repaired the Bat-jet with his heat vision. J'onn told them of the invaders coming to Mars a thousand Earth years ago and the long all-out war waged between the two races until he brought an end to it with a biological agent that paralyzed them all. Being the only survivor of the Martian race, he stood guard over the invaders as they remained in suspended animation for five hundred years until Astronauts from Earth accidentally freed them during his hibernation cycle.

J'onn was almost finished with his tale when Flash interrupted him, "Hold on a second, the astronauts who went to Mars never said anything about finding life there."

Only two explanations came to mind for Naruto, "Either some government official probably buried it as a military secret, or these invaders used the shape-shifting abilities stolen from the Martians. It would have been very easy to kill the astronauts and send replacements to Earth to infiltrate."

"With as much of a jump as they have on the Earth's defense capabilities, it was probably both." surmised Batman. "It would explain the big push on the disarming of nuclear weapons and the sabotaging of the deep space monitoring network. They didn't want us to know they were coming and took away our best weapons against them."

"We've got to put a stop this before it's too late." declared Superman.

J'onn let out a depressed sigh, "It may already be too late."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

As the seven heroes took time to assess the situation, in Metropolis and various other target cities around globe, the large fragments of space rock being defended by the various attack walkers initially deployed, started to shake, crack, and crumble. Massive tendrils of organic matter emerged from within the rocks and stretched up several stories high before they began to merge together and solidify. They formed into an oddly shaped black mechanical structure. Drill like legs shout of one of leg of the structure and burrowed deep into the earth. The structure then began to pump like it was oil drill, and pouring large amounts of highly charged dark smoke up into the atmosphere.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

The dark clouds, booming thunder, and streaks of light flashing across the sky caught the attention of everyone, including the gathered group of heroes.

"What is that?" asked Diana.

"It has begun. The invaders are nocturnal, they will use those factories to blot out the sun so they can live in perpetual darkness." explained J'onn.

Flash shot Batman a smirk, "Friends of yours?"

Batman just shot him a blank stare, "This is no joke."

"I don't see what the big problem is. Can't you just whip up another batch of that nerve gas?" suggested Flash.

J'onn shook his head, "The nerve gas was derived from a rare Martian plant. The last sample was destroyed upon my capture."

Naruto shrugged, "So we go with Plan B."

"Alright, Plan B sounds good." said Flash as he nodded in agreement, before it dawned on him. "Do we have a Plan B?"

Naruto thought it was obvious, "Yeah, blow up their factories and then shove my boot so far up their asses that they run crying back to whatever hole they originally crawled out of."

"You make it sound easy." deadpanned Batman.

The dark knight didn't miss the gleam of excitement in the eyes if the Lantern, "Not easy, but I'm always up for a good challenge. We've got multiple targets, so we should split up into three teams."

"I call dibs on the Amazon." declared Flash as he blurred next to Diana and put and arm around her shoulders.

Naruto could only shake his head in exasperation at Flash's antics and the bewildered expression on her face.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

"You are no fun, man!" shouted Flash as he streaked across the ocean with Naruto flying just overhead. The speedster was bummed out that the lantern had bought into Batman's plan for them to team up with and ruined his chance to team up with the Amazon beauty.

Naruto rolled his eyes, "Did you see what she did to that alien fighter with one punch? I probably just saved you a trip to the hospital!"

Flash winced, having forgotten about that fact, "Okay, you might have a point. I guess we'll have to have our fun kicking some invader tail!"

Naruto nodded his head in agreement, "Now, you're talking!"

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Upon their arrival at their target, Naruto and Flash scoped out the area and found three of the attack walkers guarding the factory.

'_They probably have some traps or ambushes somewhere around this thing. We'll take out the obvious targets first.'_ thought the Lantern.

Naruto turned to Flash, "I've got a plan-"

The speedster cut him off, "Who needs a plan? We kick their butts! Let's get this over with!"

Naruto threw his hands up in frustration as Flash sped off into battle, "This must be some sort of karmic payback for all the trouble I caused Kakashi-Sensei as a fresh genin before the 4th war. At least I had an excuse though, I was six!"

Flash whistled and shouted to get the attention of one of the Walker's before dodging its laser blast and taunting it in response.

"You'll have to do better than that!" shouted Flash as he suddenly blurred across the area. He now had the attention of all three walkers, but before Naruto could make use of the distraction, Flash stepped on a trap that knocked him straight up into the air before dropping him into a pit tar like slime. He struggling to get up, but found himself trapped as the slime solidified around his body. A walker moved to take advantage of his position and stab him with one of its sharp legs, but Naruto hacked the thing into three pieces with a construct replica of Kubikiribōchō, the blade of the Demon of the Hidden Mist, Zabuza Momochi.

Flash looked up at his teammate with a bashful expression, "Little help, here?"

Naruto held the bridge of his nose to let his irritation pass before responding, "Yeah, I got you. But after you're free, we do this my way."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

The target factory for Batman, Diana, and J'onn was located amongst an ancient ruins site in Egypt. Batman and J'onn were being thorough in casing the area, trying to find an opening. However, Diana's patience was quickly running out as this method ran counter to the way she was trained.

"Amazons do not hide like cowards!" declared a frustrated Diana.

"Have a little more patience; they must have a weakness. We find it, and then we strike." advised Batman.

A moment later, J'onn phased up from underground and rejoined the pair.

"I have scouted the outer walls and found no openings." informed the Martian.

"Then we make our own opening!" proclaimed Diana, quickly taking off towards the enemy.

J'onn went to stop her, but Batman held him back, "Hold it, let's see what she can do."

Diana used her lasso to tie up the legs of one of the Walkers and swung it into the wall of the factory, making a huge hole.

"There's your opening." she announced from her perch atop the fallen walker before flying through the hole.

"Not bad." commented an impressed Batman before he and J'onn moved to follow.

They dropped down through the hole to find Diana deflecting enemy laser fire with her bracelets. Upon their arrival in her support, the invaders turned to run, careful to avoid the patches of sunlight shining through the holes created by Diana's entrance.

"They run like cowards! What are you waiting for!" shouted Diana as she sprinted after them. J'onn followed immediately, but Batman took a moment to glance back through the opening into the sky before quickly following her lead.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

In Metropolis Hawkgirl and Superman took the most direct approach to dealing with the enemy. Hawkgirl whacked away at walkers with her mace, while Superman ripped them apart with his bare hands. After Hawkgirl put the last one down for the count, Superman ripped of the sharp point of its leg and chucked it at the factory, creating an opening. They moved inside to encounter about a dozen invaders firing at them with laser weapons. Before Superman could even get a word in, Hawkgirl was already at work, whacking away with her mace and making piles of white goo out of the aliens.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

In the Malaysian Jungle, Flash and Naruto were now on the same page. Naruto and pair of construct clones served as the decoy with the three walkers while he blurred around the factory, covering it with pieces of paper, which unknown to him were a batch Naruto's homemade explosive tags.

"Are you going to explain why I just covered that thing in Japanese confetti?" questioned Flash.

Naruto grinned, "Check this out."

The blond fired a blast of energy from his ring into one of the papers, which in turn caused them all to glow with green energy before exploding as one.

Flash stared with a slack jawed expression as the factory was reduced to massive pile of rubble, "Alright, I have to admit it. That was pretty freaking awesome."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

In contrast to Naruto's methods, Superman and Hawkgirl had made their way deep inside the Metropolis factory.

Hawkgirl was on full alert with her mace in hand, "They're close by, I can almost smell them…"

"Are you always so ready to fight?" questioned Superman.

She narrowed her eyes at him in annoyance, "My home Thanagar is war-like world. There you either strike first, or die."

Their brief chat was interrupted as a laser blast suddenly shot right between them. The enemy aliens who had been hidden suddenly dash out of the area and a door closed up behind. The pair turned around towards the way they came in, only to find it closed off as well. A green gas suddenly poured into the room from the ventilation system causing Hawkgirl to drop to her knees and cough as she struggled to breathe. Superman turned to try and force his way through the door as he was unaffected by the gas, but as soon as he touched the door he was shocked by a massive surge of electricity that knocked him out cold. Hawkgirl only lasted a few seconds more before she too fell unconscious.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Batman, Diana, and J'onn were only fairing slightly better than Superman and Hawkgirl as they found themselves blocked off by another group of aliens within the factory in Egypt.

Diana was deflected more laser blasts with her bracelets, "They keep blocking us off."

"It's almost as if they know what we're thinking." asserted Batman as he threw an explosive batarang at the enemy to momentarily provide them some cover. "Any ideas, J'onn?"

"Green Lantern and Flash have succeeded in destroying their factory in addition to another, but Superman and Hawkgirl are down. They have failed and been captured." informed J'onn.

"Are you sure?" questioned Diana.

J'onn nodded, "I can sense it. Hurry, follow me!"

The Martian directed them to an opening high up above and Diana followed him in flight, while Batman used his grappling hook. J'onn then led them through a maze of passages before stopping at the central core of the factory.

"Up there is the ion matrix crystal. If we can remove it, we can shut down the whole factory. I'll need a diversion." explained J'onn.

"You've got one." replied Batman as he threw a Batarang that sliced through some organic pipes causing an oil-like substance to flood a part of the area. Diana yanked on pipe right next to their position, causing smoke to flood the central core. J'onn made use of the cover to phase through the floor and towards the crystal. As Batman and Diana dealt with enemy fire, J'onn appeared in front of the crystal and flung away the alien working next to it before removing it. The factory started to shut down without the crystal, but an enemy shot him in the back. J'onn and the crystal fell of the ledge they were on, down to the ground below. Diana quickly threw off the aliens engaging her and rushed to his aide.

"Get him out of here now!" barked Batman.

The Amazon picked up J'onn and flew towards his the rapidly closing exit door. Batman was right on her heals as he used his grappling hook to scoop up the ion matrix crystal on his way out. Unfortunately only Diana and J'onn made it through, leaving Batman trapped with the enemy guards of the facility.

"Batman!" screamed Diana as she raced back to the door, but all she froze at the sound of weapons firing and the sight imprints on the organic door from the attacks. "No!"

She moved to rip the door apart but was held back by J'onn, "I'm sorry, but there's nothing more we can do for him."

She gasped in shock, "You mean…"

"He's gone." answered the Martian with his head down.

Diana turned a saddened glance back towards the door, "Hera, help us."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Now down three members, J'onn thought it was best to rendezvous in Metropolis with Flash and Green Lantern. From there they could attempt to rescue Superman and Hawkgirl from the factory in middle of the rundown city. The Martian and the Amazon were still waiting on the arrival of the pair from overseas.

Diana frowned as she observed looters raid stores and buildings down below, "Perhaps my mother was correct about mankind. They are nothing but untamed savages."

"Do not judge them too harshly, they act out of fear." advised J'onn.

"Hey, a little help over here!" shouted a man, as he and a friend tried to lift some fallen debris.

"Give us a hand! There are kids trapped under here!" pleaded his companion.

Right queue a giant green hand dropped down and picked up the giant slab of metal and stone, moving it out of the way so the men could get to the children.

"You said you needed a hand." quipped a shrugging Naruto as the hand construct dropped the piece of debris on the ground out of harm's way.

"Thanks man!" shouted one of the men with a wave.

Naruto gave him a salute before darting off to J'onn and Diana's position as Flash blurred across the streets and up the side of the building to join them as well.

"Sorry we're late; we got lost on the road of life." casually informed Naruto as he landed next to J'onn and Diana.

Flash couldn't help but shake his head, "Awful, just plain awful! Lame jokes aside, we we're bringing down those factories pretty easily with GL's explosives. Why'd you call us back?"

"Superman and Hawkgirl were taken captive. They're being held somewhere inside that facility." informed J'onn.

"Where's Batman?" asked Naruto.

"He fell as a hero in battle." solemnly replied J'onn.

"He was a true warrior." added Diana.

Flash couldn't believe it, "Bats is gone?"

The speedster knew that despite having no powers, the Dark Knight had faced impossible odds time and time again and always came out on top, "This is not good, not good at all."

"Are you sure the others are inside here?" asked Naruto.

"Yes, they are alive inside that factory, but we must act quickly. The invaders' leader, the Imperium is coming." informed J'onn.

The Lantern was completely lost, "Who?"

"The Imperium is the supreme intelligence that controls these invaders. We have met before..." explained J'onn.

"Can we trust this space case?" Flash whispered to Naruto.

Naruto shrugged, "We don't have any other options."

"Still, freeing them isn't going to be too easy." reasoned Flash.

Naruto agreed, "A jailbreak is going to be much harder than blasting that thing into oblivion like we've been doing."

The four remained heroes quickly formed a plan to infiltrate the facility and free their comrades. The plan quickly proved to be moot point, as they face very little resistance on their way inside the facility. Naruto immediately figured something was up and was proven right when they found the holding cell for Hawkgirl and Superman. The imprisoned pair turned out to be enemy invaders in disguise. The heroes found themselves trapped inside the room and exposed to the same knock gas that took down Hawkgirl ensuring their easy capture alongside their friends.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Hidden outside the factory, Naruto fought back the urge to swear loudly as his construct clone and the others were taken captive. At least his instincts to swap out with the clone on entry proved to be correct. Just as the blond was about to bust out the big guns to rescue everybody, a last second telepathic message from J'onn froze him in his tracks. He then immediately took to the skies, his power ring directing him towards Gotham City.

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><p>AN: Jumped right into the thick of things here. For anyone who is curious, Naruto's back story for the time skip will be revealed peace by peace over time. A few key details will be thrown in during the storyline that follows origins. Now hit that review button!


	3. Origins II

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything

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><p><strong>Origins II<strong>

J'onn's last second telepathic message was somewhat startling, Batman was still alive. However, as Naruto gave a little bit more thought, he realized he should have seen it coming. He'd done some background research on the various heroes and villains of Earth a while back after previous trips to the planet had piqued his curiosity. Batman was probably the most intelligent crime fighter on the planet, which also made him one of the most difficult to kill as well. J'onn and the Dark Knight had come up with the perfect little setup in his opinion. It would be easy for the invaders to buy that supposed 'weakest' of the group would be the first to fall, making the Martian's job of mentally shielded him all that much easier.

Then another thought struck the Lantern, "That Martian is pretty damn smart too, he anticipated me using a clone."

Midway to Gotham it finally dawned on Naruto that he had no idea where to find proverbial needle in a haystack that was Batman in the massive city. Luckily for him, Batman had previously provided radio transmitters just in case something serious happened they needed to initiate direct contact from long distances.

Naruto switched the device on and attached it to his ear, "Batman, this is Green Lantern. Do you copy?"

There was a few seconds of silence before the gruff voice of batman responded, "It took you long enough. I've discovered the aliens' weakness; it's sunlight."

"Sunlight?" questioned Naruto.

"These aliens originated from deep space and must have evolved without any type of resistance against the radiation from the Sun." explained Batman.

"That explains the whole perpetual darkness thing. It also explains why the attack started at night; they have a time limit to get everything ready for a full on assault." surmised Naruto.

"I am coming up with a way to reverse the charge of the ion crystals in the factories. We can then completely reverse the process; the storm clouds will dissipate and there will be nowhere for them to hide." informed Batman.

"That's a good plan, but there's got to be something more we can do to give people a fighting shot right now. Even after rescuing the others, taking down these factories is going to take some time." reasoned Naruto when an idea popped into his head. "Earlier, you said that there is some sort of treaty in place that has disarmed everyone's most powerful weapons."

"Yes, that's right. The military's nuclear arms have been disbanded and outlawed. If the military still had their nuclear arms, they might stand a fighting chance. It was a genius move on part of the advanced forces of the invaders." answered Batman.

"Then let's give them some nuclear arms." declared Naruto.

Batman quirked an eyebrow and went silent for a few seconds before responding, "There's none to give."

Naruto shook his head, "Just because a government decides it doesn't want nuclear weapons anymore, doesn't mean that weapons makers are suddenly going to stop making them. Somebody is bold enough to have a stash somewhere."

"Even if said stash of arms exists, what are we going to do? Ask them to hand the weapons over nicely?" countered Batman.

Naruto was way ahead of him, "I'm going to steal the illegal nuclear arms that don't exist because said weapons manufacturers aren't supposed to have them. Then I'm going to deliver them to the military forces that aren't supposed to be using them anymore for the government that doesn't want them. "

Batman remained silent for a moment before replying, "That works for me. There's a LexCorp facility on the outskirts of Metropolis that should have what you're looking for in its underground bunker. Take the arms to Van Eyes Air Force base just outside of Gotham, I'll meet you there."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

It didn't take long for Naruto to arrive at the facility. Stopping on the rooftop of a neighboring Queens Industry building, he scanned beneath the facility with his power ring in search of the hidden bunker with the illegal weapons. To his surprise the facility stretched several stories underground, but the hidden bunker turned out to be deep underneath the building he was standing on. It was several hundred below where the Queen Industries facility ended underground and connected to the LexCorp facility by a large underground tunnel. Foregoing invisibility, Naruto used the power of his ring to phase through the roof below him, then through the building, and finally underground into the hidden bunker.

Massive containers and crates of weaponry were packed into bunker. Naruto formed four construct clones and got to work stacking them into manageable piles to be delivered to the air force base. It took about fifteen minutes to arrange the weaponry for delivery. Once they had finished getting everything ready for delivery, Naruto and his clones turned to the hidden security camera and gave a salute before departing the bunker in the same manner in which the original entered.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

'_Those idiots better find a way to turn this around fast, or else I'll have to step in and do something.' _thought Lex Luthor as he worked at the super computer in his hidden bunker in Manhattan. The Businessman/Criminal Mastermind was monitoring the events through the use of his secret satellite network and only hoping for the invaders to just enough damage so that he could turn a major profit after the heroes sent them packing. Now that the Batman and some unknown Green Lantern were all that's left, he was starting to get worried.

His thoughts were interrupted by his bodyguard/assistant Mercy as she entered his work room, "Lex, someone has broken into the hidden stockpiles of the Metropolis facility. They have cleaned it out, nothing is left."

Lex immediately brought up the security footage for that facility. He watched as Naruto phased into the room, formed his clones and worked to gather up all his weapons in a timely manner. When Naruto and his clones saluted the camera before departing, a smirked formed on his face, "Well played Mr. Lantern, well played."

His reaction puzzled Mercy, "Isn't this bad?"

Lex dismissed her concern, "It means nothing. All he's doing is providing the military with weapons that they can't use, because the government doesn't want them, which is why I don't make them anymore."

Mercy didn't get it, and didn't care. It was way above her pay grade.

"Plus, if my weapons are effective in taking down these invaders, I'll turn an even bigger profit when this nuclear arms ban gets repealed." reasoned Lex. "It's a win-win for me."

Mercy shrugged, "It almost always is."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

After Green Lantern and Batman rendezvoused at the Air Force Base, the pair stealthily made their way back to downtown Metropolis. The hid out amongst the debris from the earlier battle outside the factory as Naruto relayed the situation inside the factory via his clone. The most notable fact he picked up on was the invaders inside the base being excited about their leader, the Imperium, arriving soon.

Naruto turned to Batman, "I'll provide the diversion while you do your thing with the crystal, but do you want go now or go for broke and wait for the Imperium?"

"They'll be more distracted when the Imperium arrives; we'll strike then." replied Batman.

Naruto looked up to the skies and spotted a massive object rapidly approaching through the dark clouds, "Looks like we won't have to wait for long..."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

The rest of the team was all held captive together within the central core of the Metropolis factory. The imprisoned on a platform composed a rock hard substance. All their arms and legs were submerged with the substance to restrain them. As the first ones captured, Superman and Hawkgirl were awake and alert while the others had yet to regain consciousness.

"J'onn! J'onn! J'onn, wake up!" called out Superman.

The Martian groaned as he regained consciousness, "Superman…"

"You shouldn't have risked your lives for us. You could have continued to fight without us." stated the Man of Steel.

"Would you not have done the same for me?" countered J'onn.

Any further thoughts were interrupted by the grunts and groans of Flash as he reawakened.

"Aw man, did anybody get the number of that bus?" mumbled the speedster.

"Earth's mightiest heroes," greeted the alien in mocking tone before he transformed into Senator Carter. "Welcome!"

"Senator Carter!" growled Superman.

The alien continued to gloat, "Unfortunately for the people of this planet, the real Senator Carter never returned from Mars."

Flash was less than impressed, "If I could move right now, I'd totally fart in your general direction."

Everyone looked at him as if he was insane.

"Your father was a snot rocket and your Imperial smells like dingelberries!" he shouted before blowing a raspberry at him.

The alien posing as Carter dismissed his antics, "Your friend must be delusional from the gas, Superman. You're the one to blame. It was so easy for me cater to your ego as we weakened Earth's defenses. You were all too eager to cooperate. The human race was totally helpless against us thanks to you."

Superman stared him down defiantly, "You haven't won just yet."

The alien laughed at him, "Wrong again, Superman! The Imperium is here!"

A massive hole opened up in the ceiling of the factory, revealing the invaders mother ship hovering high up over the city. A smaller black, shuttle ship emerged from the mother ship and sped down to the factory before slowing as it lowered itself down through the hole in the ceiling. The ship docked in the platform behind where the Senator's imposter was standing with the other aliens.

"All hail the Imperium!" declared the imposter as he the other others bowed towards the ship. An opening appeared at the bottom of the ship and massive amounts of steam poured out. When the cloud of steam finally cleared up, the Imperium was revealed. It was a purple parasitic looking creature with several tentacles extending out from its body. The Imperium glided forward passed the rows of its bowed subjects before stopping in front of the captured heroes. The alien invaders lined up next to the Imperium as it focused in on J'onn.

"It's been a long time, J'onn J'onzz." casually stated the Imperium.

The portion of the platform imprisoning the Martian suddenly extended up and dropped J'onn down in front of the Imperium, free from restraint. Two of the aliens stepped forward with electrically charged staffs and violently shocked J'onn with them. The massive amounts of electricity flowing through his body forced J'onn to revert back to his natural state that Superman and Batman originally found him in. When they stopped the torture, he collapsed to the ground, groaning from the pain.

"Much better," declared the Imperium. "You have defied us for centuries, Martian."

"_And I will never bow down before you, or any of your kind!" _ telepathically replied J'onn as he rose to his feet in defiance of the Imperium.

"Then I will personally see to something that should have been accomplished long ago: the elimination of the last Martian!" declared the Imperium.

The alien reached out with its tentacles to grab a hold of J'onn, only to halt as a pair of his own men suddenly turned on him with fire from their laser blasters. Completely caught off guard, the Imperium tried to regain control of his men, assuming that J'onn had somehow broken his control. He soon found that the two were not his men; he couldn't even sense two firing at him.

"They're imposters! Destroy them!" commanded the Imperium.

As the other invaders turned on the imposters, an invisible force suddenly collided with the Imperium disorienting him and knocking him back towards the spaceship. Then several of the invaders attacking the pair of imposters found themselves under attack from phantom punches and kicks. Earth's heroes looked upon the scene in confusion, unable to understand why the Imperium forces seemed to be turning on each other. Only J'onn seemed to be calm amidst the chaos, as he morphed back to his humanoid form.

"Now!" commanded J'onn.

Right on cue, an explosion triggered from the unit housing the ion matrix crystal. The smoke from the explosion soon cleared to reveal Batman attaching a device to the crystal.

"Batman?" muttered Flash in disbelief.

"It can't be!" exclaimed Diana.

"I mentally shielded them, so they could not be detected." explained J'onn.

The two imposters firing upon the invaders glowed with green light and revealed themselves to be a pair of construct clones. The original Lantern dropped his invisibility as he continued to mop the floor with aliens utilizing hand-to-hand combat.

"Green Lantern, but how?" questioned Hawkgirl as she and the others turned to look at the Lantern imprisoned alongside of them. They turned just in time to see as the imprisoned clone posing as the real Lantern dissipated into green light.

The Senator Carter imposter turned away from the battle with Naruto just in time to see Batman finish his work on the crystal, "What have you done?"

"Nothing major, just reversed the ion charge." casually replied Batman.

"Forget the Lantern! Destroy the crystal!" commanded the Imperium.

The aliens turned their attention away from battling the Lanterns to firing laser blasts at the ion matrix crystal. Batman swung away from the unit with his grappling hook as they opened fire. The invaders quickly found that their blasts didn't even leave a mark on the shielded crystal. The crystal and the fluid surrounding it changed in color from red to blue, and the fluid connected to it throughout the factory soon followed suit. The factory started emitted a blue beam of charged energy into the atmosphere, causing the dark clouds to dissipate and reveal a sunlit blue sky. The sunlight soon poured in through the open hole in the ceiling, causing many of the invaders to burn and melt away into nothing will others ran for cover. The Imperium tried to move into the shadowed area of the factory as the sunlight burned its skin so intensely, it began to boil. J'onn refused to let it escape so easily.

The Martian grabbed a pair of its tentacles and dragged the Imperium back into the open sunlight, "You live underground and shun the light! Why? Does it burn your pale putrid skin? You want this planet so much, experience it in full!"

The Imperium could only scream and cry out in agony as its skin burned and melted under the scorching ultraviolet rays of the sun. With the Imperium and its forces scattering from their fear of sunlight, the real Naruto and Batman moved to free the other heroes. Naruto sent his two clones to free the civilians captured by the invaders.

"Ultraviolet rays, these invaders come from deep space and have no protection against the suns ultraviolet radiation." informed Batman as he freed Diana with a small hand held laser. Superman smirked as he freed himself with his heat vision and then used it to burn through the ceiling and create another opening for sunlight. Several invaders instantly melted on the spot from exposure.

"Destroy them!" commanded the Imperium with a wavering voice to his remaining forces.

They tried to open fire on the heroes while they were still on the platform, but Naruto had just freed Flash and Hawkgirl. The Thanagarian took to the air with her mace, drawing fire away from the others before swooping in to bash some heads in. Flash streaked by another group of invaders, relieving them of their weapons and knocking them all to the ground unconscious. Naruto aided Superman's effort to rip holes in the ceiling by creating a pair of massive fists and punching right through. Diana joined their effort, helping Superman peel the holes open even wider from the outside.

In one last gasp of desperation, the Imperium managed to break free from J'onn's grip and retreat towards its shuttle. The Senator Carter impersonator saw this and ran towards its leader, jumping and grabbing onto its body, hoping it would take him to safety.

"Get off me, you peon!" shouted the Imperium as it swatted him away with a tentacle. The Carter impersonator landed in a spot open to the sunlight. The last thing it saw would be the Imperium escaping into the safety of its shuttle.

"Nooo!" cried out the invader as it melted away into nothing.

Diana saw the Imperium's shuttle trying to make an escape and managed to lasso the tail of the ship and halt its escape. As she held it back, Hawkgirl flew out in front of the ship and struck a solid blow with her mace. Diana gave another strong pull on the shuttle as Hawkgirl delivered three quick blows with her mace. The shuttle now wobbled in midair as if waiting for a finishing blow and Hawkgirl obliged with one last mace strike with all her strength. The shuttle was sent crashing back into the factory, nearly crushing Batman on its decent until Flash pulled him out of harm's way at the last moment. The shuttle exploded as it crashed into the bottom of the facilities central core.

"This place looks like it's about to go down. Maybe we should get out of here." suggested Flash.

"Are all the hostages free?" asked Superman.

"Lantern already got them! We've got to move! This whole place is going to blow!" shouted Hawkgirl.

J'onn lead the way out of the factory as it crumbled to pieces around them with Superman carrying Flash and Diana carrying Batman right behind him and Hawkgirl and Green Lantern coming up the rear. The made it to a safe distance before small explosions started to go off and watched from the roof of the Daily Planet as the entire factory went up in one massive explosion.

The mother ship rose into the sky to make its escape from Earth, but Naruto had other ideas.

"Excuse me ladies and gentlemen, but I've got a ship to catch." casually stated the Lantern as he darted off after the mother ship.

"Lantern!" called out Superman as he moved to stop him, but J'onn held him back.

"Let him go, he's got this." assured the Martian.

Naruto poured on the speed as he closed in on the mother ship and cocked back his ringed fist, his right fist, and a spiral cone of Lantern energy formed around it, stretching all the way down his forearm. He quickly reached striking distance and swung his arm forward.

"**Rasenken! (Spiral Fist)" **A massive shock-wave of energy tore into the ship propelling it away from Naruto a short distance before it suddenly imploded in a massive explosion. Having put an end to the mother ship, Naruto flew back towards the others.

Flash let out a whistle of appreciation at the sight, "GL sure does know how make some fireworks."

"As picturesque as this is moment is, there's still more work to be done." reminded J'onn.

"Then we pick back up from where we left off before when we split into teams." suggested Superman.

"Works for me." replied Batman as he departed towards his jet with his grappling hook.

By the time Naruto arrived back to the roof of the Daily Planet, only Flash was waiting for him.

"We're doing the teams' thing again. Let's roll, we were making good time through Asia before we had to come back and save their butts." remarked Flash.

Naruto scratched the back of his head, "Can we stop and get something to eat first?"

Flash grinned, "It's like you were reading my mind."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

In the days that followed Lex Luthor had relocated his main base of operations to the LexCorp executive office towers in Los Angeles until the Metropolis office was back up and running. Despite the fact that the Earth was saved and he could continue his operations, the fact that Superman had saved the world again still grated on his nerves. Yet for some reason he still watched all of the press coverage.

"This is Snapper Carr. In the aftermath of the Metropolis Meltdown, most of the remaining invaders have fled from Earth. Superman and team of other heroes have driven out the remaining pockets of resistance, helping to restore order around the globe. Despite this stunning and conclusive victory, some are warning that we must remain vigilante. Military figures around the globe are working to solve the question of what to do if the invaders or another threat like them threatens our planet again. It is this reporter's humble opinion that as long as Superman and his friends around to rise up to challenge, we call all rest easy. These brave-"

Lex flipped to a different channel before the urge to destroy the flat screen in the office with his remote overrode all thought.

"They're fools in giving all the credit to that alien and his band of merry morons. If it wasn't for my weapons the causalities suffered would have been twice as much. Should have let those damn invaders win..." grumbled the bald headed businessman.

Mercy said nothing from her seat across the room as she filed her nails. She wasn't paid to point out the fact that Lex only allowed his weapons to be used so that he could get a lucrative defense contract once they repealed the arms ban.

Lex was in full on rant mode now, "Now I they expect these costumed idiots to come up with a solution to the invasion problem. Like their last solution using Superman worked out so well, we'll be twice as ill-prepared as before the damn invasion! Leaving the protection of the entire planet to these idiots..."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

As usual, Lex Luthor was completely wrong on all counts. Batman's solution to the invasion problem was to launch a monitoring facility into orbit around the Earth, called the Watchtower.

Superman stood at the massive window to space, looking out over the Earth in slight awe, "Something tells me that this view will never get old. Do your stock holders know about this Bruce?"

"A line item hidden in Aerospace Department's R&D budget." casually replied Batman. "This watchtower will act as an early warning system for detecting other threats of invasion from space."

"And most importantly, it comes with a fully stocked kitchen!" added Flash as he and Diana arrived from the lower levels of the Watchtower with drinks in hand. "Ice Mocha?"

Superman declined, "No, thanks."

Diana took a long sip from her drink, "Hmm, delicious. They don't have these on Themyscira."

"Stick around, Princess. I'll show you the ropes." quipped Flash.

Diana smiled, "Perhaps I will."

"This is a pretty impressive installation, well to some people it is anyway." stated Hawkgirl as she nodded towards Naruto.

The veteran Lantern was leaning up against a wall, his nose buried in a book.

"I'm assuming there's a reason we were all called up here besides marvel at the wealth of whoever is bankrolling Batman?" questioned Naruto without looking away from his book.

Superman turned away from the group and took a few steps towards window looking out over Earth, "I once thought I could protect the Earth by myself; I was wrong."

He then turned back to the group, "Working together we saved the world today, and I believe if we stayed together as a team we would be force that could truly work for the ideals of peace and Justice."

Flash smirked, "What? Like a bunch of Super Friends?"

Superman returned the smirk, "More like a Justice League."

Flash shook his head as he stepped forward towards Superman, "Do have any idea how corny that sounds? But, maybe Big Blue has a point. With all of us behind this, it just might work."

He then shook Superman's hand, "Count me in."

"Me too." agreed Hawkgirl as she stepped forward and three formed a circle and put their hands on top of each other.

"My mother may not approve, but I find man's world to be intriguing. I'll gladly join." declared Diana as she joined them in the circle and put her hand on top of Hawkgirl's hand.

"What about you Batman?" asked Superman.

"I'm not really a people person, but when you need help, **and you will,** call Me." replied Batman.

Superman nodded, "Understood."

"GL, you in?" inquired Flash.

Naruto finally put away his book as he replied, "We're missing one. J'onn isn't here."

Flash scratched his head, "Yeah, where is he?"

Naruto simply pointed up and Superman floated up to find the Martian on the upper level of the watch tower. He was standing in front of the console with vacant, haunted stare as he looked upon his home planet.

"Are you alright, J'onn?" asked a concerned Superman.

"Maintaining guard over those Invaders for all those years allowed me to avoid truly dealing with the truth. My family and loved ones are gone and have been for a long time. I am the last of my kind." replied the depressed J'onn.

Superman placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, "I understand where you're coming from."

"Mars is dead and I am alone in the Universe." stated J'onn with a tone of finality.

"We can never replace the family and friends that you've lost. However, we'd be honored you could come to call Earth your new home." declared Superman.

J'onn turned to the smiling Superman and a smile formed on his face as well. The pair then dropped down to the lower levels as the others gathered around them.

Batman stopped Naruto as he moved to join them, "You never did give an answer."

Naruto cocked an eyebrow in response, "I tend to follow the lead of the smartest guy in the room."

A smirk formed on Batman's face before he pulled his trademark disappearing act the minute Naruto turned away. Naruto shook his head and pulled out his book as he joined the others who were already chatting away. There were definitely interesting times ahead.

* * *

><p>Alright, that's it for Origins. I hope you like the kick off point for this story, now the real adventures will begin. Thanks for all the reviews, and please continue to review and comment on this chapter. Any ideas you have will be given some thought. See you next time!<p> 


	4. Law & Order

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything

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><p><strong>Law &amp; Order<strong>

"Come on, come on…" muttered the space pirate, Kanjar Ro, as he pushed his ships thrusters to the maximum speed in an effort to escape his pursuer. The native of the planet Dhor in the Antares star system was considered odd in appearance even when it came to aliens. Possessing grayish pink skin, a long sharp nose, bug eyes and jagged teeth, he looked like the humanoid bastard love child of an insect, a dead rat, and a fish. Appearances aside, the thief had 'acquired' some 'rare' blasters and was looking to flip them to some rebels on the planet Ajuris 4. Unfortunately, Naruto was lying in wait for the pirate upon his approach to the planet's lunar orbit. Quickly finding that out running the Green Lantern was out of the question, Ro fired at the blond with the ships main blaster. Naruto formed a massive mirror construct in response, reflecting Kanjar's blast right back at his own ship. One reflected blast took down the main canon, before a flurry super-sized senbon needle constructs pierced the ship's hull and knocked the engines offline. The damage forced Ro to crash land on the moon of Ajuris 4 and surrender to the Green Lantern. As soon as the ship came to a stop, a construct hammer shattered the windshield before morphing into a massive hand which yanked Ro out of the shit and unceremoniously dropped him on the ground at the feet of Naruto.

"We've been trailing the money of this little smuggling operation for some time now. I'm tired of chasing down you little rats. Give me your boss, now." demanded Naruto.

"I can't give you what I don't know!" exclaimed a fearful Kanjar Ro. "I'm only making small change, nobody tells me anything except what to deliver and where to take it."

Naruto wasn't having any of it, "Don't even try to bullshit me, Ro. You've received the biggest payoff of anyone involved. Everyone else seems to think this is just your basic, intergalactic smuggling operation, but I've dug deeper and found out the truth. The people you're working for have been trying to manipulate the Green Lantern Corps. They already know I'm getting close, that's why I decided to ambush you out here in space, before you could hatch whatever plan you have cooked for me to stumble into down there on Ajuris 4. You're going to talk to me, one way or another..."

Kanjar's expression of panic and fear suddenly morph into a smirk, "You're a fool, there was no trap on Ajuris 4! It was merely false information planted to lure you into this one. Just take a look behind you!"

Naruto grabbed Kanjar by the throat with a construct fist as he turned around, "What are you trying to pull…"

The blond's voice trailed off as he turned his head to find a large fleet of nearly twenty space cruisers hovering right above them. His eyes quickly narrowed, _'Unfortunately my hunch it seems to be dead on. That was all me bullshitting. Even so, I'm still no closer to figuring out who's behind all of this.'_

The veteran Lantern quickly devised course of action: cause a diversion and retreat with Kanjar Ro as a prisoner for further interrogation. The ships quickly opened fire on Naruto, forcing him to dodge several blasts before throwing up a construct stone wall to block the incoming fire. He then fired a projectile ball of energy towards the enemy ships that would have produced a blinding flash of light for some cover if not for an enemy ship errantly dodging into the way of the fake attack. The energy ball bounced off the reflective shields of the ship and ricocheted towards Ajuris 4. The Lantern though nothing of it until several seconds later when a chaotic surge of volcanic and seismic activity rapidly spread across the surface of Ajuris 4 before the planet suddenly exploded.

Naruto knew that energy ball didn't have the juice behind to cause that reaction, but it didn't matter. He'd walked right into a setup that was far bigger than the setup he anticipated since it now looked like he was responsible for the destruction of Ajuris 4. As the now invisible Lantern fled from the scene, the voice of his old friend Shikamaru rang through his mind, _'Naruto, whenever you stick your nose into anything, and you always end up neck deep in some troublesome shit.'_

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Within 48 hours, Kanjar Ro found himself handcuffed in an interrogation room on Ajuris 5 under the 'care' of Ajuris Department of Investigation (ADI) Agents Vritsko and Qrene. After everything went down on Ajuris 4, Kanjar Ro's friends all fled along with Naruto, leaving Ro stranded at the apparent scene of the crime. The pair were leaning hard on the space pirate, but he'd stuck to his guns to what in their opinion was a ridiculous story involving a Green Lantern inadvertently blowing up Ajuris 4. Being that only Ro was found at the scene of the crime, they didn't buy it. At this point the two agents were waiting on the arrival of a device, the Cortex Visualizer, which would reveal the actual sequence of events experienced by Kanjar Ro before the arrival of agents on the scene.

"Over Three billion dead Ro, give us one good reason why we shouldn't send you directly to the gas chamber." demanded Vritsko.

Ro pounded his fist on the table, "Look, like I told you guys before! It wasn't me or my crew!"

"We find that hard to believe when you were the only one found on the scene." countered Qrene.

"I was running from a Green Lantern! He grounded my ship on the moon, when my friends showed up to bail me out of trouble he returned fire. One his blasts ricocheted of a deflector shield right into Ajuris 4 and the whole planet went boom! I'm telling the truth." pleaded Kanjar Ro.

Vritsko snorted in disbelief, "Yeah, a likely story Ro, tell it to the visualizer."

There was a knock on the door to the interrogation room and Qrene opened it. He was handed a helmet shaped device before he shut the door once more.

"That was your last chance to come clean, Ro. Now we get to see what really happened." declared Qrene as he slammed the device down on Ro's head and started it up.

Kanjar slumped into his seat as a projection emitted from the device onto the two-way mirror of the interrogation room, allowing the other observing agents to watch as well. To surprise of all the agents, they watched as the sequence of events played out just as Kanjar Ro said they would.

Qrene couldn't believe it, "One bad shot, and then three billion gone in a blink of eye…"

Vritsko could only shake his head in disbelief before shrugging it off, "He screwed up big time for sure, but at least he managed to cancel all of my future alimony payments in the process."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Within those same 48 hours, Naruto was already working on a plan to reveal the real culprits who were trying to frame him for turning Ajuris 4 into space dust. He was just glad that he'd gotten sucked into this scheme and not another Lantern like John. Naruto felt his friend's Marine training made him too rigid and by the book, never allowing the man to look underneath the underneath.

_'He probably never would have seen the set-up coming and tried to take the fall for the whole thing. Then I'd been ten steps behind in trying to figure this all out before he got himself killed. Then again, if I had Shikamaru's brain, I would be 200 steps ahead and never have gotten stuck like this in the first place. Although, he would have thought that the whole thing would be too troublesome to deal with in the first place.' _thought Naruto as he landed in the parking lot of Zlikto's Casino on planet Arcose.

Having sent off several clones to be sighted in a variety of locations, the Lantern had disguised himself in a hooded black cloak which concealed his face. He scanned the parking lot for a few seconds before finding the vehicle he'd been tracking and heading inside the casino. Bypassing the various gaming areas, he headed straight for the bar.

At the bar, a well-known Czarnian bounty hunter could be found making a ruckus while watching a fight one of the massive television screen.

"Oh, come on! You're going to drop after a weak hit like that!" yelled Lobo, crushing the mug in his hand in frustration.

"Hey barkeep, next rounds on me." called out an all too familiar voice.

Lobo's eyes lit up with excitement as he turned around, "Well if it isn't the Ninja Man! Finally decided to ditch those puke green space cops and team up with the Main Man?"

Naruto rolled his eyes, "I need a favor."

Lobo narrowed his eyes in response, "Last time I checked, I didn't owe you any more favors. This is going to cost ya, but since you're a friend I won't overcharge."

"This isn't a freebie. The favor I want you to do, it's to collect a bounty. It's a big one, should be on the books by the end of the week." explained Naruto.

The 'cha-ching' of a cash register went off in Lobo's mind, "Alright, you've got the Main Man's attention."

"You heard about what went down with Ajuris 4?" inquired Naruto.

Lobo scoffed, "Who hasn't heard? Three billion weaklings wasted in the blink of eye. That's kind of mayhem the Main Man can admire. So, you got a lead on who did it or something?"

Naruto shook his head, "No, even better than that, I was there."

Lobo's jaw dropped in shock, "You're shitting me."

The blond looked him straight in the eye, "Dead serious."

The Czarnian's eyes lit up, "Then you know who did it! You puke greens can't touch 'em, so your giving me the bounty. Is that it?"

"This is way bigger than a planet of 3 billion getting reduced to space dust. Trust me on this one; it's better if I show you what went down. I've got an angle I'm trying to work on this thing." informed Naruto as he got up and led Lobo out of the casino.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

The citizens of the Ajuris star system were in uproar about the destruction of Ajuris 4, causing a strong political push to get a resolution to the situation as quickly as possible. The various government officials were happy to pin this one man and toss him to the wolves. After one week, the High Tribunal of Ajuris 5 was prepared to try the case. Not a seat was left empty in the gallery of the Tribunal court, and outraged citizens were protesting in mass around the courthouse, all crying for the perpetrator to be put to death.

"Order! Order! We will have order!" demanded the one of the reptilian courtroom guards in attempt to silence the raucous crowd.

The crowd ignored him as people continued to rant on and on about the travesty befallen Ajuris 4 and demand justice.

"Silence!" exclaimed a booming voice as the massive screen in the rear of the courtroom came to life. A bright light emitted from it before fading to reveal the robotic face of the tribunal chief. Everyone in the crowd rose to their feet as he spoke, "This High Tribunal is now convened. Never before have so many put aside their differences in pursuit of a single goal."

A second feminine robotic face appeared to the right of the chief and spoke, "However, there has never before been a crime so vast and so heinous that it could unite all of us in both grief and revulsion."

Another male robotic face appeared to the left of the chief, completed the tribunal, "We have gathered here today to seek justice."

The chief prosecutor, an eyebrow-less, hairless, and purple-eyed alien with yellow skin dressed in elegant ceremonial robes, pressed a button on the console of the platform he was standing causing it to levitate from its position near the floor up to the monitor close to the faces of tribunal.

"Where is the accused?" questioned the Tribunal chief.

"Unfortunately, he is still at large." replied the prosecutor.

"Very well…" spoke the chief as the three judges turned to each other to discuss something for a moment before arriving at a decision. "Manhunters, step forward."

A dozen hulking red robots wielding metal staffs marched forward to face the judges.

"This is no ordinary criminal. Locating him and bringing him back will most certainly involve great peril. Are you prepared for that?" asked the head of the tribunal.

"No man escapes the Manhunters." declared the leader of the robot platoon.

His fellow Manhunters echoed his declaration, "No man escapes the Manhunters!"

"Show us an image of the accused." requested the lead Manhunter.

"The accused is a member of the famed Green Lantern corps. He is a native of the planet Seijin and the Lantern currently assigned to Sector 2418, Naruto Uzumaki." informed the prosecutor as he pressed a button on the console of his platform and a projected image of the masked and bandana sporting Naruto appeared on the screen. The gathered crowd roared in fury at the sight of him.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

On the second moon of Ajuris 5, Lobo the bounty hunter waited patiently in his Nevis-IV Space Cruiser for the signal to depart to Earth. For some reason, Naruto wanted him to tail the Manhunters on their way to Earth, and allow them to approach Naruto first. It didn't him though, with the bounty he was about to cash in on, he'd roll the red carpet out for the Manhunters in Naruto told him to. Even if in his opinion, the Manhunters were the biggest junkyard toaster reject excuses for bounty hunters in the entire universe.

"You better know what you're doing Ninja Man. You asked for the Main Man, you got him!" declared Lobo as the engines on his ship roared life at the sight of the Manhunters.

He waited until they got some distance in front of him before following.

"Manhunters, what a waste a scrap metal…" muttered Lobo as started making his way to Earth.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

On Earth, the Justice League had officially been in operation for several weeks now. The majority of the masses were down right thrilled about having a team of some of the best superheroes on the planet working to protect the world from major threats. Since Superman came up with the idea, he was positioned as the face and spokesperson of league. Between him and the intrigue in Diana from a being a new hero in the eye of the public, the others were allowed to carry on with business as usual in the fight for justice. Flash was bummed out at the lack of attention being thrown his way, while to his surprise Naruto was thrilled by the fact that he was considered 'just another Green Lantern'. Batman, Hawkgirl, and J'onn didn't care at all about how much attention there were receiving. Batman was around the least frequently, Gotham was still the being his highest priority. He typically only interacted with the league on the occasional threats that intersected his own cases up to this point. Naruto was only step up from Batman, coming through the watch tower at irregular time intervals. The blond made an effort, but he was still busy tying up a few loose ends left behind John Stewart. He was making his rounds throughout the sector to make his presence as the new Lantern felt, a whole lot of good that did him though. Currently Flash, Hawkgirl, on J'onn were on monitoring duty. Flash sat munching on some snacks while watching Hawkgirl keep busy by performing maintenance on one the stations consoles on the second deck.

"So, you were a cop back on Thanagar?" inquired Flash.

"A detective." replied Hawkgirl.

"At least your more honest than, GL. He told me that before he became a Lantern, he was a ninja on his home planet, a home planet full of ninjas! Can you believe that?" remarked Flash.

Hawkgirl shrugged, "Anything is possible; I've seen and heard of stranger things."

Flash dismissed the possibility, "No way, he was just yanking my chain. That guy is definitely from Earth. So, what's it like being a detective on Thanagar?"

Hawkgirl shrugged as she finished her work and closed up the console, "The same as being a cop here on Earth, I supposed. We have criminals, and we catch them."

Flash scratched his chin, pretending to be in deep thought, "So, what about when you're not catching criminals? When you're not at work…"

Hawkgirl glanced at him, "What about it?"

Flash grinned, "Well, is there a…Hawkboy?"

A smirk found its way to Hawkgirl's face as she spotted J'onn exit the elevator behind Flash. She jumped up and landed next to J'onn, "I've got some more maintenance to do."

A smirking Flash appeared next to J'onn as she walked away. The Martian turned to the speedster with a blank look.

Flash shrugged, "What? Don't you get bored doing guard duty in absolute silence?"

"More than you could ever imagine." replied J'onn in a solemn tone.

Flash winced and frowned, having forgotten just exactly who he was talking to, "Sorry, I didn't mean to-"

His apology was cut off by the alarms of the Watchtower going off, warning of an incursion. The pair moved to the window to see a trio of Manhunters fly by in route to Earth.

"Looks like we've got an invasion on our hands." stated Flash.

"I'll notify the others." declared J'onn.

As J'onn went to contact the rest to league, Flash sped off to help Hawkgirl prepare the Javelin for takeoff. Ten minutes later, J'onn arrived at the launch bay and joined Hawkgirl at the controls of the ship.

"Superman is dealing with an earthquake; Wonder Woman is on another case and Batman would only say that he's busy." informed J'onn as the engines roared to life.

"Typical." remarked Hawkgirl as she opened up the bay doors.

"What about GL?" asked Flash as he buckled himself into his seat.

"He's still out in space dealing with an interplanetary smuggling ring." answered J'onn.

"That's what he's been saying for the last week and a half." remarked Hawkgirl.

Flash shrugged, "Must be a really big smuggling ring."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

The Manhunters quickly passed through Earth's atmosphere and locked onto the energy signature of the Green Lantern. It hadn't been difficult for them to find it, the energy shined like a beacon to their sensors. Passing over cities, and even rural area, the tracked the energy to what appeared to a barren wasteland in the middle of the wilderness. There wasn't much vegetation to speak of in the rocky area that possessed several cliff faces and rocky outcroppings. Waiting for them in the middle of the area, was Naruto, who was going through some stretching exercises.

"Took you three long enough to get here." remarked Naruto as they landed in front of him. If the barb irritated the Manhunters, they didn't show it.

"You are the Green Lantern known as Naruto Uzumaki?" questioned the lead Manhunter.

"Yeah, who's asking?" replied Naruto.

"You are wanted for trial on Ajuris 5; surrender your ring." ordered the Manhunter.

Naruto grinned beneath his mask, "You didn't think I was going to come easy, did you? I'm not going to entrust my well-being to a few tin cans that would be better served as toasters than bounty hunters."

"Very well, use of force is authorized. Target to be detained alive." commanded the leader of the trio of Manhunters as they advanced on Naruto. Each Manhunter hit a switch on their metal staffs, extending them to full length. The top ends of the staff all charged up with energy as they aim at Naruto and fired. The three blasts all seemingly hit the Green Lantern and triggered an explosion. When the smoke cleared, Naruto was nowhere to be found. Using their scanners, they all quickly scanned to area to see where he escaped to.

"That's the problem with you Manhunters, no sense of imagination in the whole lot of you." echoed Naruto's voice.

The three Manhunters were suddenly yanked underground down to their necks. Naruto phased up from below ground shaking his head at the struggling hunters, "All too easy."

The javelin had landed nearby seconds before, with Hawkgirl, Flash, and J'onn arriving just in time to see Naruto imprison the three Manhunters underground.

"You three stay out of this." commanded Naruto as they approached. The other three heroes all halted, "These three only want me and that's exactly who they're gonna get."

"You claimed you were out in space handling a smuggling ring." stated Hawkgirl with an accusatory tone.

"I was until I got myself into a little bit of trouble, and picked up a bounty on my head." explained Naruto. "I've only been waiting out here in the middle of nowhere for that past few hours, so the hunters could come to me."

"You can't expect to just pick off the bounty hunter one by one as they come after you." reasoned Flash.

"I've got this under control, these three couldn't beat me unless I wanted them to." assured Naruto. "Besides, I do have a plan. I'm just waiting on a friend to show up."

J'onn directed his attention back the Manhunters, "Then he or she better arrive quickly. They aren't finished yet."

"You parlor tricks will only take you so far." declared the lead Manhunter as they used their strength to break free from underground.

Naruto smirked beneath his mask, "Did you silly robots actually think you stand a chance against a Green Lantern? Your brains must have short circuited or something. Maybe if there were 300 of you Manhunters, you might stand a chance. But sending only three? I won't even break a sweat."

This time two of the hunters rushed at Naruto while the leader stayed back to charge his staff to full power. Naruto took to the air and the pair followed firing blasts with their staffs. Naruto avoided the attacks and slowed up to allow the Lanterns to get closer so he could engage them in hand to hand combat. The Manhunters were large in stature and very powerful, but their attacks were easy to predict and they lacked any sort of speed. They came from opposite angles and attacked with a furious assault of punches and staff strikes that Naruto managed to all dodge effortlessly. The Manhunters thought their blows were barely missing the Lantern, but Naruto was simply lulling them into a false sense of security by waiting until the last second to dodge.

"Give up Lantern! This all you can do just to dodge us! You can't even fight back!"

"We're wearing you down. As soon as your speed starts to fail, you're finished!"

"I wouldn't be so sure!" rang out the voice of Naruto as he suddenly vanished from between the two robots and reappeared above them. His maneuver caused one Manhunter to nail the other in the face with a hay-maker, while he simultaneously hit with a charged staff strike to the chest.

"No one makes a fool of the Manhunters!" roared the third hunter from the ground as he fired a massive blast of energy from his staff at Naruto.

"Look out GL!" shouted Flash.

Naruto had been anticipating this attack from the third Manhunter all along, and was merely biding time until he could direct of the other Manhunters into its path. However, Superman had other plans as he arrived on the scene. The man of steel darted right into the path of the blast and took it right in the chest. A strong right hook and vicious spin kick sent the hunters next to Naruto flying, giving the lantern some room to operate. A construct hand caught the falling Superman and laid him down next the other league members before grabbing the last Manhunter and throwing him straight up into the air and following suit. It didn't Superman long to recover from the blast he took. Once he regained his senses, the Kryptonian didn't even give a thought to why the others were standing on the sidelines and went to aid Naruto.

J'onn stopped him from jumping back in the fray, "He claims to have a plan; it is best if we do not interfere."

"Not yet, at least…" added Hawkgirl.

"Fine, but the minute this looks like it's going south, we step in whether he likes it or not." stated Superman.

"I don't think that's going to be necessary." stated Flash, directing their attention back to the fight.

High in the sky Naruto had been utilizing his vastly superior skills in hand to hand combat to reign down a furious assault on the robot. The hunter couldn't even manage to mount a decent defense as, punches and kicks came at too quick a pace for him to avoid. Even when the machine managed to block, Naruto easily broke through his guard. Despite having the upper hand and mixing in some vicious knee shots to the chest and elbows to the face, Naruto quickly found that the Manhunters were built to withstand a lot of punishment. The blond was dominating the air battle, but the robot had taken minimal damage so far forcing Naruto to step things up a notch. He vanished from in front of the robot and suddenly reappeared behind the Manhunter, restraining him with chains of energy from his ring. The blond then nose-dived towards the ground while rotating at ferocious speeds. The other heroes watched in awe, as the Lantern executed a Front Lotus, pile driving the Manhunter head first into the ground. Naruto floated back into the sky, above the massive crater and cloud of dust generated by the technique.

"All right, there is no way that thing is getting up anytime soon." declared Flash.

No sooner did the speedster say that did metallic arm burst out from the ground in middle of the crater. The Manhunter managed to pull himself out of the ground; however, he looked to be on his last legs. His left forearm was bent completely in the wrong direction, have of his head was caved in, and he was missing a chunk out of his back. He only made it two steps before his systems automatically shut down to prevent catastrophic failure and he collapsed to the ground face first.

"Okay, now he's not getting up anytime soon." reasserted Flash.

The other two Manhunters were still up for the challenge, flying in from opposite directions and rapid firing blasts with their staffs. Naruto substituted from between the two of them, leaving a log in his place. The hunters froze in the air, scanning around for Naruto and spotting something coming in from above at high speeds. The fired at it, but it only proved to be a construct decoy. The real Naruto came rocketing in feet first from behind the hunters like a missile collided with one of the hunters sending him crashing into a nearby rock formation, and burying the machine under tons of rubble. Before he could turn his attention to the third sound of a revving motor cycle engine caught everyone's attention.

"No junkyard scrap heap collects a bounty on my watch!" declared Lobo as he plowed into the second Manhunter with his bike and sent him flying into a cliff face.

"Score another one for the Main Man!" proclaimed Lobo as he landed his motorcycle next to the other heroes.

His grand entrance was ruined as Naruto dropped down next to him and smacked Lobo across the back of the head, "Where the fuck have you been?"

"You said to let them engage you first, then come steal the collar." retorted Lobo as he rubbed his head where Naruto hit him.

Naruto shook his head in exasperation, "Yeah, which could have happened 30 seconds after they arrived. Not only did I have to waste time toying with the Manhunters, you got the Justice League dragged into this too."

Lobo shrugged, "Meh, those rust buckets had it coming to them."

Superman voiced his opinion on the absurdity of the situation, "Your plan is Lobo?"

Naruto elaborated, "I needed someone I can trust to 'apprehend' me."

That didn't make it seem any less crazy, "But Lobo?"

"Hey, the Main Man never goes back on his word, just like the Ninja Man." defended Lobo.

"So, what now? You make it look like you've been captured to buy yourself some more time?" inquired J'onn.

"Something like that." vaguely replied Naruto.

"If all the hunters are as weak as those three, there's no reason to run and hide." asserted Hawkgirl.

Lobo scoffed, "Those tin cans aren't that weak bird brain, we just make it look easy. Someone like you wouldn't stand a chance."

Hawkgirl's eyebrow twitched in irritation as she stalked towards Lobo, mace in hand, "Why you-"

"You two can duke it out some other time. The hunters are back, make sure this looks real." alerted Naruto.

"Lights out!" declared Lobo has he planted a fist in Naruto's gut. The blond doubled over in pain before collapsing to his knees at then falling to the ground unconscious. The bounty hunter then slapped some restraints on blond before hefting him over his shoulder and leaping onto his motorcycle.

"Smell ya later, Justice Dweebs!" yelled Lobo as he revved up the engine at took off towards his space cruiser.

With their target now captured the remaining pair of Manhunters picked up the disabled third and also cleared out, leaving the League members standing on the battlefield in confusion.

Superman still couldn't believe it, "His plan was Lobo?"

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Upon their arrival in the Spaceport on Ajuris 5, the hunter and fugitive were met with a massive crowd of angry aliens on the verge of a riot once they exited the ship. Naruto had switched outfits on the way to Ajuris 5; he now wore a black suit, Lantern green shirt, and black tie displaying the Lantern symbol. He'd also swapped his bandana for a green clothed forehead protector with the Lantern symbol. The yelling and screaming aliens were already riled up into a frenzy, carrying Anti-Green Lantern signs and various other signs with vile statements targeting Naruto specifically. The pair didn't get two feet from the ship before they were met by four Manhunters on a hovering platform.

"We have been tasked with ensuring this prisoner's safety." informed the lead hunter as he pulled out a document. "Here's you're warrant voucher. Now, hand over the prisoner and his ring."

Lobo grabbed the voucher and made sure it was legit before flipping the hunter Naruto's ring and left the restrained blond in their care, "Alright then, he's your problem now. Time to get paid!"

Had his hands not been restrained, Naruto would have flipped the bounty hunter off as he fled the scene for his big payday.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Back at the Green Lantern Headquarters on Planet Oa, the Guardians were watching as the scene of Naruto being taking into custody unfolded via holographic projector.

"What now?" questioned one of the Guardians.

"With any luck this matter will not require our attention. Naruto Uzumaki is one our best and brightest, not to mention very resourceful. I have full confidence in him." replied the Guardian seated next to him.

"And if it does require our attention?" countered the other guardian.

His counterpart narrowed his eyes, "I don't need to remind you how much we've gained because of the core's diversity, but sometimes it forces us to make sacrifices. However, as I said before, I full confidence in Lantern Uzumaki."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

As the platform moved towards the courthouse, Naruto amused himself by artfully dodging the objects thrown at him by the crowd. He made effort to apologize to the masses for their poor aim in a patronizing fashion each and every time they missed. From the outside the courthouse was a massive intimidating structure that rose high into the sky with spherical dome level positioned at the top. When he finally arrived at the front gate, he was greeted by a group of his fellow Lanterns that included Galius, Arcas, Kilowog, Arisia, and Tomar-Tu in a less than pleasant fashion.

"He was among the best of us, that's for sure. But now..." muttered Galius Zed as shook his head in disgust.

As the majority of them glared at him in disgust, he merely eye-smiled in return as he stepped off the platform, "Hey you all come see to the show? Here it's going to be a real shocker!"

"You're a real piece of scum, Uzumaki." snarled Arcas.

"I always knew you were nothing more than a loose cannon. Surprised it took you this long to show your true colors. You're a disgrace to the core!" added a sneering Zed.

To their surprise he showed no shame, no remorse. He didn't back down from them one bit, "Don't hold back Zed, tell me how you really feel."

A furious Tomar-Tu grabbed Naruto by the collar of his shirt and lifted him up off his feet and held him against a wall with a fist cocked back. Naruto didn't flinch, he just stared back into the furious eyes of Tomar-Tu, the son of the man who previously wielded his ring. At waging an internal battle with himself, the Lantern let Naruto go and stormed away. Naruto rolled his shoulders before nodding to the Manhunters, "Let's go."

As the hunters lead him away, one of the robots bumped into Arcas, who took offense, "Watch it, you big hunk of junk."

The hunter turned to go after the Lantern, but the lead Manhunter stopped him with a hand to the shoulder and a shake of his head. As Naruto departed Zed kicked off another 'bash Naruto' session with all the other Lanterns except two. Arisia remained silent, not really knowing what to think about the whole situation as she waited upon the arrival of John and Katma. Kilowog stared at the departing form of Naruto with narrowed eyes and one thought running through his mind, _'That little poozer is up to something.'_

The Manhunters lead Naruto into the facility to a room with whether the other aliens were held in cylindrical barriers of bright light that served as holding cells.

"What now?" questioned Naruto after the lead Manhunter placed him inside a cell.

"Your trial will begin soon. If I had been programmed with emotions I'd almost feel sorry for you." stated the Manhunter before he walked away.

Naruto scoffed, "Sarcasm does not suit robots."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Back at the watchtower, J'onn had been trying to telepathically track Naruto, to no avail. As Flash, Hawkgirl, and Superman tried to piece together what the Lantern had gotten himself involved in, the Martian stood looking out into space with his eyes glowing yellow from the use of his telepathic powers.

He suddenly came out his trace shaking his head, "I cannot get a good read on Green Lantern. His focus seems to be scattered across multiple locations."

"How is that even possible?" questioned Flash.

Hawkgirl shrugged, "Perhaps he is in a location that is interfering with J'onn's telepathic abilities."

"Then track down Lobo instead." ordered Superman. "Wherever he's at, Lantern shouldn't be too far away from him."

J'onn went back into his telepathic trance for minute before coming out of it with a concerned look on his face. The Martian floated over to the nearby console and activated the hologram of a star system with the keyboard. He pointed out a particular spot, "He's currently at this planet, Ajuris 5. He's collecting a rather sizable bounty for Green Lantern after turning him over to be arrested."

Superman gritted his teeth and clinched his fist in frustration, "He should have come to us first. Whatever plan he had cooked up, Lobo bailed on it for the big payday."

"To Ajuris 5...and beyond!" declared Flash as he sped to the Javelin Bay.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

As the four league members approached Ajuris 5, the kept running over the events of the day, trying to piece together the situation. None of them were having much luck.

Flash scratched his chin as he tried to wrap his head around the situation, "I wonder what is that GL did to get this bounty on his head in the first place."

"I'm not quite sure, perhaps he was in the wrong place at the wrong time will investigating that smuggling operation." replied J'onn.

"I'm starting to think that Green Lantern isn't right in the head." remarked Hawkgirl. "Who comes up with a plan to escape one set of bounty hunter by using another bounty hunter?"

Superman smiled, "I think you have to be a little crazy to get involved in this line of work."

Hawkgirl shrugged, "Yeah, but there's a difference between having a few quirks..."

"...and making Batman look normal. We are talking about a guy who caries around more 'just in case' explosives than Batman." finished Flash.

_'A whole lot more...' _simultaneously thought Superman, Hawkgirl, and J'onn. They all had seen Naruto's large collection of homemade explosive tags at work when reviewing film from the battle with the invaders and then learned that he'd doubled the amount on his person at any time since then.

"And that's in addition to wielding one of the most powerful weapons in the universe." muttered Hawkgirl.

Their musings were interrupted as a trio of Ajuris 5 police air cruisers surrounded them an opened fire. The man of steel managed to guide the Javelin out of the line of fire, but the police ships wouldn't let up.

"They're not responding to our request to land!" alerted Flash.

After missing out on the battle back on Earth, Hawkgirl was itching to throw down.

"If it's a fight they want, I'm happy to oblige." declared the winged warrior as she grabbed her mace.

"Hey, we didn't come here to pick a fight." reminded Flash. "It won't do GL any good if we get arrested right along side of him."

Superman nodded in agreement, "He's right. We take them down without causing any harm. Flash take the controls."

The three league members capable of flight were already outside the javelin before Flash could respond.

"Flash take the controls. Does anyone ask if I even know how to work the controls? No!" grumbled speedster as he moved to cockpit to figure how not to crash the ship.

Superman and J'onn forced two of the ships to make emergency landings by taking out the ships' power sources. However, Hawkgirl decided to let out some pent up aggression by bashing in the thrusters of the third cruiser with her mace.

"Did not hear the taking them down with out harm part!" yelled Flash over their radios as he watched the last ship go down out of control and headed for a crash. Fortunately Superman made it to the cruiser in time to catch the ship and prevent a crash, saving the lives of the cops piloting the ship and any potential innocent bystanders. Flash's relief only lasted for a moment as he then had to deal figuring out how to activate the landing system before the Javelin's autopilot caused the ship to crash by continuing down the current path to the spaceport that was too narrow. The wings of the Javelin were clipping and scraping the sides of buildings, sending out hazardous sparks. Flash just started activating every control and pressing every button he could see, until finally he initiated the landing system. The javelin came to a skidding halt a top the targeted landing platform, but everything looked to still be in one piece.

He let out a sigh of relief as he exited the ship's hatch, "Any landing you walk away from is a good one I always say."

The minute he exited the hatch he found himself and the Javelin surrounded by dozens of security personnel with their weapons all trained on him.

Flash raised his hands up, "Uh...I come in peace?"

The soldiers ignored his sign of surrender and fired at him with their weapons. The speedster darted away from his position and avoided blasts as he zigzagged around the area. Several members of the security team quickly found themselves both unconscious and relieved of their weapons. The speedy hero then caused several of the men to unleash fire on each other in their effort to take him down. He kept wearing down their numbers until the others arrived and there was only one man left standing. J'onn dropped down and grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck as he used his telepathy to read the soldier's mind before knocking him unconscious.

"Nice timing." quipped Flash.

He was ignored by J'onn who had more important news, "Green Lantern is being held close by. That way!"

The Martian turned and directed their attentions towards the courthouse.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Once they reached the facility where John Indicated Green Lantern was being held, Superman used his heat vision to melt through the hard glass of dome like wall, not knowing that is was a courthouse. As they flew inside, Naruto couldn't help but face-palm at their timing and method of entry. The prosecutor had been giving his opening statement using rhetoric along the lines of "There can be no excuse for this horror" and "An example must be made" and "There will be no escape from punishment". Then the Justice League decided to drop in on what looked like a jail break. The crowd immediately grew restless and started making chatter.

"Order! We will have order!" commanded the head of security.

"What is going on here? Some sort of trial?" questioned Flash at the sight of all the people.

"Apparently..." responded Superman.

"Remove these intruders immediately!" commanded the third tribunal judge.

A trio of the reptilian court guards jumped on some levitating disks and flew up to where the League members had entered intent on apprehending them. Superman used his speed and strength to knock them all of the disks and down to the ground.

As the Manhunters also serving as security moved to engage them, Superman turned to Tribunal Judges, "Wait! We apologize for interrupting these proceedings, but Naruto Uzumaki is our friend."

Everyone froze and went silent as the judges took a moment to discuss the situation.

"This is a public trial." reasoned the female judge.

"Very well, you make take seats in the gallery." stated the relenting third judge.

"But this tribunal will tolerate no further interruptions or outbursts." declared the Tribunal chief.

"Thank you, your honor." replied Superman before they all moved to the gallery.

"Are you ready to call your first witness?" the chief asked the prosecutor.

"Yes, I am my lord. I call Kanjar Ro." announced the prosecutor.

The space pirate emerged from the passageway beneath the gallery, escorted by a guard.

The chief of security swore him in to testify as they reached the disks hovering at floor level, "Kanjar Ro, you agree to allow us to probe any and all of your memories and experiences?"

"I've got nothing to hide." replied Kanjar as he stepped on the disk, which elevated him in front of the prosecutor.

"State your name and profession." commanded the prosecutor.

"Kanjar Ro, the space pirate." announced Ro.

"You are a criminal, and yet you are here to testify as a witness to another crime. Why?" questioned the prosecutor.

"I may be a thief, but my crimes are nothing compared to what he did." answered Ro, pointing at Naruto.

The prosecutor activated some controls on the console in front of him and a cylinder of light enveloped the platform disk Ro stood on, "Tell us of your encounter with the Green Lantern Naruto Uzumaki."

As Kanjar Ro told the tail of his encounter with Naruto, his memories were projected for everyone in the courtroom to see. He began the story with how he procured some blasters and was making a run to Ajuris 4, where Naruto started chasing him near the moon. He explained how he attacked Naruto, who in turn disabled his ship and interrogated him after he crashed on a moon.

He then went on to when his friends arrived and attacked Naruto, "...As he fired back at my friends, one of his blasts bounced of their deflector shields towards Ajuris 4. There the blast impacted a volcanic region causing a devastating reaction that caused the planet to explode. Three billion, that's how many, were on that planet, all gone in an instant."

Nearly everyone in courtroom were visible startled by both the visuals and his testimony. The room went speechless from a moment before they all started to whisper. Despite what was presented before them, Hawkgirl and Flash thought something was fishy about Kanjar Ro's testimony.

"I have no more questions for this witness." stated the prosecutor.

"Very well, this account is most disturbing. We will rec-"

"I still have questions for this witness." interjected Naruto. "It would be far too prejudicial to recess at this point."

"Very well, you may proceed." decided the Chief Judge.

"Thank you, your honor." replied Naruto with a bow before his platform was elevated to face Kanjar Ro. "Now Kanjar Ro, your profession is a space pirate is it not?"

"Objection!" declared the prosecutor. "Asked and answered already."

"The line of questioning relates to the validity of the witnesses testimony." countered Naruto.

"Overruled." ruled the Chief Judge.

"Yes, I am a space pirate." confirmed Kanjar Ro.

"Then how could you possibly know precisely know how Ajuris 4 exploded?" questioned Naruto.

Ro rolled his eyes, "I saw your blast bounce off my friend's ship and then hit Ajuris 4 causing the planet to explode. It's very clear."

Naruto smirked beneath his mask, "So, the blast was not strong enough to overpower the shields on a ship, yet you claim it was powerful enough to destroy an entire planet?"

Ro was caught off guard, "Well, not normally no, but it hit in precisely the right spot to produce this catastrophe."

"Are you a scientist?" asked Naruto.

"Well, no." answered Ro.

"A physicist then?" inquired Naruto.

"No, but-" replied Kanjar Ro.

Naruto cut him off, "How about a geological expert?"

"Well no-"

Naruto cut him off again, "Then how could you possibly know how Ajuris 4 exploded?"

"I saw the blast from your ring bounce off the shields and towards the planet. Then the planet exploded!" yelled an irritated Ro.

"So, you saw it fly off towards the planet, but you didn't see it hit the planet." continued Naruto. "Therefore you cannot conclude where exactly the blast hit, or when it hit. The planet could have exploded before the blast even made contact! The blast could have hit a pile of rocks and something else caused the planet to explode!"

"Objection! Is there a question in there?" interjected the prosecutor.

"I'll rephrase." countered Naruto. "From your recollection of the events, can you conclusively determine where and when the blast hit the planet before it exploded or even if it did?"

Ro glared at the Lantern, "No, I cannot."

"Then I move to strike from the record anything in this witness's testimony beyond the scope of seeing the blast deflect off the shields and towards the planet." proclaimed Naruto.

"Motion granted." declared the female justice.

"Now in your retelling of the events you didn't go into much detail about the brief time I questioned you after you crash landed on Ajuris 4. Why is that?"

Ro started to get nervous at this line of questioning, "It didn't seem important at the time."

Naruto chuckled, "Not important? Did you not say specifically I quote 'You're a fool, there was no trap on Ajuris 4! It was merely false information planted to lure you into this one. Just take a look behind you!' during my brief interrogation, just as your friends arrived?"

"Well yeah I said that, but that only had to do with payback for you busting our smuggling ring!" defended Ro.

Naruto shook his head, "It only involved with payback for me busting your smuggling ring? Then why in your the projection of your memories does it clearly show me firing blast for which the trajectory was not in line with any of your friends ships, nor the planet Ajuris 4 and your friend diving in front of the attack at the last moment to deflect it towards a Ajuris 4?"

Ro shrugged, "He zigged; you zagged. It happens."

"It happens...You know what I think happened here? I think that this was all a big set up, you tried to make it look like I blew up Ajuris 4 to cover your own crime of ending the three billion lives on that planet!" declared Naruto.

"Objection! Argumentative!" exclaimed the prosecutor.

Naruto raised his hands in a placating fashion. "Withdrawn. Now, with it being confirmed that your profession is that of a space pirate, I ask what did the prosecution offer you in exchange for your testimony?"

"I have received full immunity from any crimes pertaining to this incident." replied a sneering Kanjar Ro.

"Quite the incentive to embellish your testimony and implicate anyone other than yourself as the real culprit." flippantly remarked Naruto.

"Objection!" roared the prosecutor in outrage.

"Withdrawn. I have no further questions for this _witness_." declared Naruto, enunciating the last word as if the idea of Ro as credible witness was entirely laughable.

"Very well, there is much to be considered from the examination and cross-examination of this witness. We will recess for forty penticycles." stated the chief justice as he and the rest of the Tribunal vanished from the screen.

With recess in session, Naruto had the Manhunters take him back to his cell and motioned for the rest of the League to follow. Once the arrived to the room with his cell, they were surprised to find Lobo waiting outside the cell with Naruto. Before they could speak, Naruto held up a hand to silence them as Lobo activated a device in his hand.

"Now no one can listen into anything said in this room." explained Naruto.

"So this was your plan all along, you came back here to clear your name." asserted Hawkgirl.

"Did you used to be a lawyer before you became a Lantern or something? You ripped that guy to shreds on the cross!" exclaimed a grinning Flash.

Naruto shrugged, "Not exactly. I have some clones back on Earth studying footage of a prosecutor and a defense attorney from some TV legal dramas back on Earth. Anything they learn, I learn."

The group sweat-dropped at that admission.

Superman had known there was something familiar about the way he was working the courtroom. "You're basing your entire legal defense on imitating Jack McCoy from Law and Order." deadpanned the Kryptonian.

The Lantern scoffed, "No, I'm just using that as means of how to act and operate properly in courtroom. I have experience in infiltration via impersonation and working a piece of scum like Kanjar Ro in an interrogation is the same anywhere."

"This is still very elaborate plan only to defend yourself in a trial." asserted J'onn.

"There is much more to this than just a trial. You must look underneath the underneath as my old Sensei used to say." responded Naruto.

Their discussion was interrupted by the arrival of the Lanterns John Stewart and Katma Tui. The former marine stormed over, intent on giving Naruto a piece of his mind, "Have you lost your damn mind? Just what the hell have you gotten yourself into!"

Naruto was not in the mood to be lectured, "Who in the hell to do you think you're talking to? Shove off Stewart."

John wasn't backing down, "You're telling me to shove off? You and end all of this nonsense right now! Testify to what really happened and stop screwing around with another one of your crazy schemes!"

Naruto's tone turned completely serious, "I can't end this now. This whole thing is much bigger than someone wanting it to look like I reduced Ajuris 4 to space dust."

"What in the hell could possibly be bigger than that!" exclaimed John.

"There is a mole in the Green Lantern Corps." declared Naruto.

* * *

><p><strong>(Dramatic Musical Trail off) To Be Continued...<strong>

**I've got no funny little anecdote's for the end of this chapter. Jus do what you do, a hit that button that says Review.  
><strong>


	5. Law & Order II

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything.

* * *

><p><strong>Law and Order II<strong>

Katma voiced the disbelief everyone was feeling, "You've gotten mixed up in some crazy cases before Uzumaki, but you really expect us to believe there's a mole in the Green Lantern Corps? That's impossible."

Lobo didn't like the fact they were questioning what Naruto was saying, "You should watch what you say lady. Things go down in differently and it's your boyfriend sitting in his cell and not the Ninja Man."

Katma turned to give the hunter a piece of her mind, but Naruto cut her off before she could get started, "He's right actually. This plan was well in works before I took over this sector; the moving pieces initiated with John as the target. Based on my investigation, the switch in Lanterns forced them to speed up their plans."

"That's still not a lot to go one. How are you so certain there is a mole?" questioned Superman.

"I wasn't at first. I thought that the smuggling ring was a part of a larger organized ring of criminal activity that was manipulating events. A burst of activity to attract our attention in one area enabled them to move and operate under the radar in another." explained Naruto. "There was one thing that tipped me off and made me look underneath the underneath. They were too clean; every activity went off without a hitch. Unless you had someone on the inside directing you to precise patrolling patterns of the core, no one can be that good. This scheme was running across multiple sectors. Someone was getting paid off for that knowledge, and only someone within the core has access to it."

"How is you being on trial, helping with figuring any of this out?" questioned John.

Naruto shrugged, "At this point, all we know is that for some reason they wanted a Lantern to take the fall for the destruction of Ajuris 4. So, I'm going to drag this out as long as I can."

"Perhaps, they want to discredit and plant dissension among the ranks of the Green Lanterns." suggested J'onn.

"Maybe, but that sounds like an awful lot of trouble for such a small goal." reasoned Superman. "The based on the rest of the information, it would seem like someone was trying to take down the core by manipulating the various Lanterns in positions to be killed."

"Then why set GL up to take the fall at trial? Why not kill him that way?" reasoned Flash.

"Because maybe this trial is all a part of some sort of endgame scheme to distract the entire core from something much bigger and much worse than killing off a few Lanterns." surmised Katma.

Naruto nodded, "I was thinking that, but why target the core? Unless you planned to launch some sort of assault on Oa, but that would be the dumbest plan in the history of dumb plans."

John scoffed, "You'd be better off committing suicide by black hole."

"Just what do you plan to do if the person behinds this intends for you to get executed?" questioned Hawkgirl.

Naruto shrugged, "If they can make it look like I blew up Ajuris 4, it's only fair for me to return to favor and out bullshit their bullshit if it comes to that."

Lobo's eyes lit up, "Oh, you're gonna use the fake dead clone gag?"

"Wasn't planning on taking it that far, but I like the way you're thinking." replied Naruto.

"How did he become a Green Lantern?" muttered Hawkgirl.

Katma shrugged, "The ring chooses the wielder."

"Alright, we're going to need to split up and cover our bases here." stated John. "A few of us need to go check out Ajuris 4."

"You three go ahead and do that." replied Katma as she indicated John, Superman, and J'onn. "We'll go rattle the cages of the other Lanterns and this Kanjar Ro fellow."

As the all moved to leave, Naruto called out to Flash, "Flash, stick with us. I'm going to need your help with dragging out the trial."

Flash shot him a puzzled look, "You want the fastest man alive to help slow things down? It's not gonna be easy."

Once everyone else had cleared out, Lobo turned to Naruto and gave him a nod, "Alright, let's hear it."

"Objection." firmly stated Naruto.

Lobo shook his head, "No, you need more umpf!"

"Objection!" declared Naruto.

Lobo shrugged, "Better, but not good enough."

"HOLD IT!" Naruto suddenly spun around and struck a pose with his left hand extended out, "OBJECTION!"

Lobo could have sworn he felt the room shake and an image of the word objection over shadowing Naruto, "That's it! Right there, the show stopper! Again!"

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

The chief prosecutor sat in his office on his computer trying to rework his strategy for the case. He hadn't expected the defendant to be able to turn the tables on his key witness so effectively. He knew if the trial continued along its current path, there would be no way for him to recapture the emotion needed to convict. As a result of proceeding to trial in such a quick matter, there simply wasn't enough time to gather hard evidence. His next move was now to call in various scientific experts to provide credibility to Ro's testimony, but that at best wouldn't be enough.

"I need to find a way to discredit this Lantern." muttered the prosecutor.

His thoughts were interrupted by his phone ringing. As he turned away from his monitor to answer the phone, he didn't notice the static distortion of a robotic face appear on the screen for a second before vanishing. Once he hung up the phone, he found he had a new message in his inbox.

As the prosecutor read the message his eyes lit up with excitement, "Now this is something I can work with. All I need is for him to call one of his Lantern friends to the stand..."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

As Superman, J'onn, and John boarded the Javelin, the Martian voiced the question that had been on his mind since they left the courthouse.

"Is there any particular reason you want to investigate Ajuris 4?" J'onn asked Superman. "It may lend aid in proving Naruto's innocence, but I'm not sure it will help with the bigger problem."

"You never know, figuring out what happened on Ajuris 4 may lend a clue to who pulling the strings behind the scenes." reasoned John.

"That's one reason. The other is that someone wanted to make it look like Naruto blew up Ajuris 4. From Ro's testimony and the way Naruto discredited him, I've got a hunch on where to start." explained Superman.

"You going to let us know what that hunch is?" questioned John.

Superman shook his head, "Not yet, but I'm sure it will become clear for all of us once we get there."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

"So has Naruto always been so..." began Hawkgirl.

Katma smirked, "Strange? Weird? Bizarre? An Enigma?"

Hawkgirl let out an amused snort, "Yeah, let's go with all of the above."

"I'll just say this, that whole 'look underneath the underneath' thing applies to him as well." replied Katma.

Hawkgirl rolled her eyes, "Yeah, that clears up a whole lot."

Just as they reached cantina, the pair encountered a ticked off Arisia storming out.

"What happened?" asked Katma.

"Nothing, just couldn't sit there anymore while the rest of those idiots sit around and bad mouth one of our own." replied Arisia. "It's like they forget than whenever anyone is in trouble, Naruto is always at the front of line to go bail them out. I had to leave before I couldn't stop myself from hurting someone."

"I guess there's no point asking for their help then. You can come with us; we're going after Kanjar Ro for some answers." explained Kat.

The blonde's eyes lit up, "As long I get a few shots in."

Katma smirked, "After we get the answers."

"You two go on ahead, I'll catch up in a minute." stated Hawkgirl as she marched into the cantina.

The former detective walked right up to table where the lanterns Galius Zed, Kilowog, Arkkis, Tomar-Tu, and Larvox were seated.

"Waiter, another order of rings over here!" called out Arkkis.

"Why aren't you helping or supporting your fellow Lantern at the trial?" demanded Hawkgirl.

Galius Zed scoffed, "We couldn't stand that farce of trial anymore."

"That piece of trash Uzumaki has made us all look bad." added Arkkis before he chugged his beverage.

Hawkgirl let out a snort of disgust, "I guess that shows how far loyalty goes in the vaunted Green Lantern Corps."

Zed rolled his eyes, "Get off your damn high horse, lady. If you had any common sense you'd steer clear of the lunatic too."

"Otherwise, his wretched stench will spread all over you." added Arkkis.

"Is that right?" questioned Hawkgirl. She suddenly brought her mace down on the middle of their table with authority, "You're nothing but cowards, the whole lot of you!"

After another whack on the table she turned her attention to Arkkis, who activated his ring and brought his arm up to shield himself as she hammered away at him with her mace. One overpowering strike knocked him out of his seat and into Zed, who also tumbled out his chair and hit the ground.

The owner of the restaurant caught sight of the commotion and scrambled over to their table from his seat, "Please, my friends! No weapons!"

Hawkgirl flung her mace away, casually embedding in a stone support column, "I don't need a weapon to take down these weaklings."

The angry Lanterns all deactivated their rings in response to the challenge. Arkkis charged the Thanagarian first, swinging wildly with a right-handed hay-maker that Hawkgirl ducked under before connecting with a left jab to his face. Her right hooked knocked him on his heels before she finished him off with a powerful uppercut that sent him flying across the room, where he landed back on the Lantern's table. Zed bounced across the room before launching himself at her through the air, but she ducked underneath him, clipping him with her wing and sending him crashing into the waitress station. Tomar-Tu managed to tackle the winged warrior, but she rolled with the blow and threw him off her and into the bar. Larvox rushed her, but Hawkgirl lifted the oddly shaped alien over her head and threw him into Tomar-Tu. Zed got back to his feet and launched himself at her again, but she ducked him completely this time as he flew across the room and slammed into the wall just to the left of Kilowog's head, who wisely decided to stay out of it. Arkkis made another run at Hawkgirl only to catch powerful left to the face that sent him crashing into Zed and sending them both through the wall. She stepped back and kicked the spherical shaped alien like a soccer-ball, sending Zed pin-balling off walls and various other objects around the restaurant. As Arkkis ran back in from the hall to rejoin the fray, Kilowog had seen enough. He formed a barrier between Arkkis and Hawkgirl with his ring, bringing the brawl to an end.

"This has gone far enough. Naruto would never turn his back on a friend in need. He's one of us, and I'm going to help him." declared Kilowog as he marched out of the cantina.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

In alley just outside the cantina, Kanjar Ro was having a heated conversation with one of the Manhunters. Unknown to either of them, Katma and Arisia were eavesdropping on the conversation.

"You told me that this was an easy job!" complained the space pirate. "I don't see that Lantern rolling over like a martyr."

"Do not concern yourself with the trial, its eventual outcome is irrelevant." reminded the Manhunter.

"Still, if this goes south, I'm going to be the one on the hook here!" ranted Ro. "I saw a couple of his friends depart on a ship to go check out Ajuris 4."

"Which of his friends were they?" questioned the Manhunter.

"The big guy in blue, the Martian, and the Lantern John Stewart." answered Kanjar.

"Kal-el and the others are of no concern to you. The improvements I made to your technology and security measures in place on the moon of Ajuris 4 will handle them." informed the Manhunter. "You need to continue to maintain a low profile. Your integrity as a witness cannot afford to be compromised any more than it already is. This case cannot conclude until all the pieces are in place."

"Fine, but if this starts going bad, I'm clearing out here." proclaimed Kanjar Ro before he stormed off back towards the courthouse.

"If this case goes south, fleeing custody will be the least of your problems, Kanjar Ro." stated the Manhunter once Ro was out of hearing range. The robot then disappeared down the other side of the alley. Once they were both clear of the area, the pair of female Lanterns emerged from their hiding place.

"There was something weird about that Manhunter. His voice didn't sound like it should." observed Katma.

"That's the least of our problems right now. We've got to warn John and the others about that moon." advised Arisia.

"You go do that. I'm going stick around here and tail some of these Manhunters." replied Katma. "We need to find out whose pulling their strings."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Superman, J'onn, and John Stewart had already begun their exploration of the moon of Ajuris 4, unaware of the dangers that laid in wait for them. Superman and J'onn donned grey and gold spacesuits as the exited the ship to join John.

"Now can you tell me what's wrong with this picture?" questioned Superman as they stood over the edge of crater just outside the javelin.

"The echoes of our pasts, the tragic loss of life..." began J'onn.

Stewart cut him off, "No, that's not it. It's this moon. It shouldn't be here."

"That's right." affirmed Superman. "This moon is still in orbit of a planet that no longer exists."

"It can't be!" exclaimed J'onn as his eyes widened at the revelation. "This moon should have shot off into space the moment Ajuris 4 was destroyed."

"But it didn't, something is keeping this moon in orbit." asserted Superman. "I bet whatever is holding this moon in place is also responsible for what really happened to Ajuris 4."

"Don't forget the fact that Kanjar Ro said they were laying a trap for Naruto on this moon." reminded John. "If Ajuris 4 really exploded like it supposed have, he shouldn't even be alive to tell the tale. He was outside his broken ship when it happened. The backlash from such an explosion would have sent him hurtling into space with no protection and killed him."

"Then we will definitely find what we are looking for here on this moon. Let's spread out so we can cover ground faster." ordered Superman.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

After the riveting examination and cross-examination to open up the trial, the case took a detour into the mundane aspects of the trial. The prosecutor had called in several scientific experts in effort to open the door for Ro's full version of the events. However, well timed objections and sharp cross-examination rendered the gains on this front minimal. Naruto's gut told him to keep the case on the current path, attacking the complete lack of evidence that he did not commit the crime to drag things out. However, after constant urging from Flash he decided to call Kilowog as a character witness.

"Naruto Uzumaki has put his life on the line to save his fellow Lanterns, innocents, and even strangers. That's just the kind of guy he is, and I'm proud to call him a friend." Kilowog told the Tribunal.

Naruto nodded, "Thanks, Kilowog. No more questions for this witness."

"Councilor." spoke the Tribunal Chief, indicating the prosecutor could begin his cross-examination.

"Kilowog can you tell me exactly what a Green Lantern does?" inquired the prosecutor.

"Oh that's easy, we catch bad guys." replied Kilowog.

"Commendable, but how do you know who the bad guys are?" questioned the prosecutor.

Kilowog shrugged, "Um, we just do?"

"Don't you use some sort library or book of criminals?" reasoned the prosecutor.

Naruto didn't like where this line of questioning is going, "Objection! I hardly see how this line of questioning is relevant to the case."

"My line of questioning goes towards the capabilities of the defendant to commit the crime." asserted the prosecutor.

"We'll allow for the moment councilor, but provide some relevance quickly." ruled the female judge. "The witness may answer the question."

"Oh yeah, we have the bingo book. It's a comprehensive list of criminals, fugitives and whatnot. Every lantern has access to a digital version via their power ring." answered Kilowog.

"So anyone who appears in the bingo book is for certain a criminal of some sort. There's no ambiguity to this." clarified the prosecutor.

Kilowog nodded, "Yes, that's right. A lot of the bounty hunters are using their own version of it. In fact the entire concept came from Naruto. The idea originated from his home planet."

By now Naruto had realized where this line of questioning was headed, but there was nothing he could do to stop it.

The prosecutor pressed a button on his console, bringing up a document on the viewing screen, "I would like to introduce into evidence Article 11, which is a page from the defendant's personnel file on record with the Green Lantern Core. It is a page taken from the Bingo Book of the defendant's home planet."

"Objection!" declared Naruto.

"On what grounds?" questioned the female Tribunal judge.

"Primarily that it's going to make me look bad, but I'll go with relevance." replied Naruto.

"Overruled." echoed the Tribunal in unison.

The prosecutor read the excerpt, "Listing for criminal Naruto Uzumaki, moniker the Green Goblin. He has SSS-Rank and a bounty of 1 billion Ryo, the highest ranking and bounty in the book along with a flee-on-sight order. He is listed as a known traitor, deserter, murderer and the terrorist directly responsible for the theft of a national monument and the destruction of the moon."

The entire gallery gasped in shock at this revelation and the dull murmur of the crowd soon morphed into a load roar as the raw fury of the crowd surged to surface once again.

"Order! Order! We will have order!" declared the head of security.

"SILENCE!" commanded the tribunal chief. The crowd immediately settled down at his command, "We will have no more outbursts. Continue your questioning counselor."

Naruto had no choice but to object again, "Objection!"

"On what grounds?" questioned the third judge.

"The evidence is not only highly prejudicial, but also bears no relevance to case." argued Naruto.

"The probative value outweighs the prejudicial, and the evidence is highly relevant. It establishes a previous pattern of behavior for the defendant and also lends credence to the capability of defendant to commit to the crime. He opened the door for this line of questioning." reasoned the prosecutor.

"The objection is overruled." ruled the Tribunal Chief. "You may continue your questioning of the witness councilor."

The prosecutor turned to Kilowog and cut right to the heart of the matter, "Who gave you the right? Who entrusted a man of obvious suspect integrity with ability to wield such an incredibly dangerous and deadly weapon?"

**"We did!"** rang out a collection of authoritative voices.**  
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Everyone stared in disbelief as five of the Guardians entered the courtroom intent on protecting one of their own. Naruto let out a sigh of relief. Despite the controversial revelation of his past, he was safe for now thanks to the guardians. However, the others still needed get to the bottom of this and fast. The blond didn't fancy having even more of his secrets revealed as this played out.

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On the moon of Ajuris 4, the three heroes continued their scouting of their respective areas with two of them coming up empty.

Superman had found nothing in his search area, "I hope you both are having better luck than me."

"No, all quiet on my front. I'm seeing nothing but craters." replied John.

"I have definitely found something, but as to what I can only begin to imagine." informed J'onn.

"Hold tight, we'll meet at your position." replied Superman.

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Back on Ajuris 5, Katma had been following the movements of the Manhunters closely. There was nothing as overt as the meeting with Kanjar Ro, until the all suddenly moved to a central location at once. The mechanical peacekeepers all filed into an empty warehouse, where they lined up like a platoon of soldiers in front of their leader. The head of the Manhunters spoke to his brethren like a general rallying his troops for battle.

"It is time brothers, time to avenge a thousand years of grievances. It is time to regain our power and dignity!" proclaimed the head Manhunter.

The gathered hunters let out collective roar of approval to his sentiments.

"The plan was worked out flawlessly so far. With the help of our new brother, we have sown dissension amongst the Lantern Core and stained their reputation forever. Furthermore, we have succeeded in drawing out the leader of our most hated enemy away from their stronghold and home planet of Oa. Yes, they're here, the Guardians!"

"Destroy them! Destroy them all!" roared the gathered hunters.

"No my brothers, not here, not yet. Our destiny lies back at Oa, but rest assured, the Guardians will burn! For we are the Manhunters!"

"No man escapes the Manhunters!" bellowed the Manhunters in unison.

Katma abandoned her surveillance at this point, she'd found out all she needed to know. Whoever this 'new brother' of the Manhunters was, had to be the mole. There was no doubt in her mind as she made her way back to the courthouse to get Naruto to put an end to the trial.

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John, Superman, and J'onn stood facing the massive complex device the Martian found hidden within a fissure on the surface of the moon of Ajuris 4.

"Do you have any idea what this is? Some sort of weapon?" asked John.

"It's not a weapon." replied the Martian. "When I was a child on Mars we had small toys called illusitrons. They could project crude images over objects and even empty space."

"And you think this is a larger version." asserted Superman.

J'onn nodded, "Despite the difference in size, the engineering principles seem to be the same."

Stewart wasn't buying it, "How can an illusion generator hold this moon in place?"

"You're asking the wrong question. All along we've known that someone wanted to make it look like Naruto destroyed Ajuris 4. What if that's exactly what they did?" questioned Superman. "It would explain why this moon is still in orbit."

"This entire thing can't just be hoax. People would know if Ajuris 4 is just sitting right there, hidden from the universe." countered the Lantern.

"There's one way to find out for sure." interjected J'onn.

John pointed his ring at the massive piece of machinery and fired a blast of Lantern energy. Cracks appeared on the ground in front of them as the area started to quake. The reason why soon became evident as four massive robots tunneled to the surface from underground. The four massive green and gray machines stood nearly nine feet tall, with a pair of them sporting drill bits for hands and the others having massive pliers-like pincers.

"Interesting welcoming committee." quipped Superman.

One the pincer robots leaped at Superman, swinging its arm down to crush the Kryptonian. The man of steel easily caught the incoming limb before turning and throwing his massive foe into the nearby rock wall. He quickly followed up with a power punch to put the machine out of commission for good. The pair of drilling robots had attacked the Martian Manhunter, trying bore a hole right through J'onn. The Martian made himself intangible and managed to confuse the two machines into attacking each other, knocking them both out of commission. The Lantern also had an easy time with his robot, forming a massive construct sledge hammer with his power ring and bashed the machine into oblivion with half a dozen hits. Thinking that was the end of the security installments the three never noticed the half a dozen more of the massive robots preparing to leap down into the fissure from the moon's surface and ambush the trio. Just as they leaped off the cliff they were cut down by a construct buzz saw courtesy of the arriving Arisia. The trio of heroes looked up just as the robotic body parts started raining down around them.

"What are you doing here, Arisia?" asked a confused John.

"Came to warn you about the trap here, but it's a bit too late for that." replied the blonde.

"How did you know there was a trap?" inquired J'onn.

"Kat and I were listening in on a conversation between that pirate Kanjar Ro and one of those Manhunters. This one was really strange though." informed Arisia.

Superman prompted her to elaborate, "What do you mean by strange?"

"His voice, it didn't sound like normal. The Manhunters all pretty much sound the same, but his was distinctly different." explained Arisia.

"So, the Manhunters are behind all of this? That still doesn't make any sense." muttered John.

"I'm pretty sure that's why Kat stuck around to keep an eye on them." remarked Arisia.

"Either Manhunters are the moles, or the mole is pulling their strings to cover his own tracks." surmised J'onn.

"I'd put my money on the latter." commented Superman. The odd symbols branded on the chests of the robots they just defeated in combination with Arisia's description of the strange Manhunter gave him the sense of déjà vu, he just couldn't figure out why. It was as if the answer was right in front of him, but he was missing the one piece of the puzzle that put it all together.

"We still need figure what this machine is doing so we can shut down." reminded John.

Arisia turned and fired a beam of light towards a chunk of debris from Ajuris 4. It never reached as it hit some sort of barrier that rippled as the beam of light reflected off into space. The barrier continued to ripple, revealing itself to be masking a spherical mass identical in size to Ajuris 4.

"Well, I guess that answers that question." muttered a stunned J'onn, as the others absently nodded in agreement.

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Back on Ajuris 5, one of the Guardians had taken the stand in defense of Naruto.

"You provide the Green Lanterns with their power, but are you in control of it?" questioned the Prosecutor.

"It is true we Guardians control the Lantern Core's power source, but the individual Lanterns have complete autonomy with their power rings." replied the Guardian.

"So not only do you serve up great power to madmen like Uzumaki on a silver platter, you also a free from any liability. If something goes wrong, it's not your fault." argued the Prosecutor.

"You misunderstand, we give the Lanterns autonomy because we trust their judgment." explained the Guardian. "And you are mistaken about Lantern Naruto Uzumaki being a madman. The actions taken by him on his home planet were approved by us. A being had nearly brought the Anti-Life equation into full effect on the entire population of the planet. Lantern Uzumaki's miscasting as a villain on his home world is a side effect of damage wrote to the psyche of the people of Seijin before he could defeat this entity."

"Yes, we'll gladly take your word for it. After all, it's not like you wouldn't do whatever is necessary to protect not only one of your own, but the Lantern symbol as well." retorted the prosecutor.

"Objection!" exclaimed Naruto is disbelief.

"Withdrawn, I have no further questions for this witness. How much more can we hear? We demand an immediate judgment." demanded the prosecutor.

"Objection! All the facts have not been heard in this case." proclaimed Naruto.

"Unless you plan on taking the stand, I see how no further testimony could become relevant to this case." countered the prosecutor.

"If that's what it is going to take, then fine." replied Naruto.

"You do realize you will be subjecting to the same standard as Kanjar Ro for testimony. Any and all experiences will be open to questioning." informed the female judge.

"I will testify." affirmed Naruto.

"Very well." declared the Tribunal Chief. "We will take a short recess and then return to hear your testimony."

"You reek of desperation." snarled the prosecutor as he glided past Naruto on his platform.

Naruto pretended to clear his ear out with his pinky, "I'm sorry, did you say something?"

As he lowered his platform to the floor level, Flash and Lobo approached him.

"You can't be serious about testifying." asserted Flash.

Naruto pointed to his ear, where a radio piece was hidden, "I've been listening in on the others checking out Ajuris 4. They already figured out the problem, so I've got that in the hip pocket now."

"All this court crap is boring, I wanna kick some tail!" growled Lobo.

"The feeling is mutual, but we still need a few more pieces of information to get the bottom of all this." responded Naruto. He then guided the pair over to where the Guardians were seated.

"I appreciate the support, but how did you know to come?" asked Naruto. "Until they revealed my history, there was no need for you to show up. Your timing was way too convenient."

"We received a distress message from John Stewart about them utilizing your record with your home planet against you." explained the Guardian who testified.

"John hasn't been here for a while, he's off investigating Ajuris 4." muttered Naruto as his eyes narrowed. "That message was a fake."

"A fake that was sent by the Manhunters to lure you away from Oa." informed Katma as she and Hawkgirl arrived back in the courtroom to join the conversation.

"If the Manhunters are headed back to Oa, then we must return there immediately." declared one of the Guardians.

"Back to Oa? They've been there before?" questioned Katma.

"We created the Manhunters." admitted the Guardian.

"Say what?" blurted Flash in disbelief.

"It was before the Lantern Core. We thought robots would make good peacekeepers, but they were flawed. They were unable understand the subtle gradations between good and evil." explained the Guardian.

Naruto shook his head, "And you didn't scrap them all together?"

"We reprogrammed them for lesser duties like tracking hunting, and guarding. They didn't show any objections." replied the Guardian.

"Not out loud anyway, but enough for someone twist them up like a bunch of windup toys and set them loose on Oa." remarked Katma.

"Round up the rest Lanterns lurking around here and book it back to Oa." stated Naruto as he tossed Katma his extra radio piece. "John and the others are on channel 3. Flash, Lobo and I will catch up after I finish things up here in minute."

"Sound plan Uzumaki, but I think your forgetting something." reminded Hawkgirl as she nodded towards where his ring was being held as evidence.

Naruto cocked an eyebrow at her, "Did you really think that I would hand over my real ring when I know I'm innocent?"

The Thanagarian narrowed her eyes, "That ring wouldn't happen to be some sort of secret explosive device would it?"

Naruto rolled his eyes, "No, it's just some toy lantern decoder ring. Explosives aren't my only method of diversion."

"Not your only method, just your favorite." remarked a smirking Flash.

Katma, Hawkgirl, and the Guardians immediately departed leaving Flash, Lobo, and Naruto behind in the courtroom. It was only a few more minutes until the Tribunal returned from their recess expecting to hear Naruto's testimony.

"If the defendant would please take the stand, we will proceed with your testimony." ordered the female tribunal judge.

"I've changed my mind, I will not testify. I cannot testify." stated Naruto to the shock of the gallery.

"If you will not testify then we have no choice but to render immediate judgment." declared the Tribunal Chief.

"You're not going be rendering any type of judgment. In fact you're going to let me walk right out of this courtroom in about five minutes." declared Naruto.

"And why would we do such a thing?" sneered the prosecutor.

"Because, I'm not the real Naruto Uzumaki." In a bit of sleight of hand Naruto peeled back the sleeve of his suit jacket to twist his watch, when in reality he was accessing his power-ring hidden in his sleeve. The result was his transformation in a glow of green light into a blue skinned, orange haired reptilian alien, "I'm Special Agent Vrakone, Internal Affairs! This entire trial was one big sting operation to expose a leak in the justice department."

"Impossible!" exclaimed the tribunal in disbelief.

A couple of Internal Affairs agents leaped out of their seats in the gallery, "Wait, a minute you told us you were really from the Bureau!"

Naruto nodded, "Yes that was also part of my cover identity. I actually work for Ajuris Central Intelligence!"

A couple of Allied Bureau of Investigation agents jumped up, "But you told us you were the Department of Ajuran Security!"

"He told us he was from the Bureau." countered a DAS officer.

"Who are you really working for?" demanded the prosecutor.

Naruto paced back and forth on his platform, "You want to know who I'm really working for? This was supposed to be deep, deep, deep cover, but fine...I'm from the AFP, I'm an Ajurale!"

"The Ajuris Federal Police? An Ajurale!" they all exclaimed in disbelief.

Up in the stands, Lobo barely held back his laughter while Flash wished he had some popcorn to enjoy the show.

The disguised Naruto pointed out the window behind them, "Look to the right out of that window there. What do you see? That is the People's Democratic Republic of Ajuris 2. I didn't know who I could trust, so I had to throw everybody off the trail. It was only thanks to Lantern Uzumaki and his connections that we could pull this off and discover that the Manhunters had gone rouge. That information you received about Lantern Naruto Uzumaki was completely fabricated. We left the bait for the Manhunters and they took it."

"That's all fine and dandy, but it still doesn't explain what happened to Ajuris 4. Someone must answer for that!" demanded the Prosecutor.

Naruto smirked, "Ajuris 4 is right where it's always been, what you see is an illusion provided by none other than your star witness Kanjar Ro."

Right as he said this, the illusitron back on Ajuris 4 was destroyed by John and Arisia, causing the blue planet to reappear in the skyline of Ajuris 5 to the shock of the prosecutor, the Tribunal, and the gallery. Ro tried to make a run for it, but he was immediately held up by security personnel.

"Why go to all this trouble? What was the point?" questioned the Tribunal Chief.

Naruto glanced around the room shiftily, "I shouldn't have even told you this much, I could lose my Ajuralehood."

"You're what?" exclaimed the prosecutor in disbelief.

"My Ajuralehood!" declared Naruto. "Listen, the truth is I was doing it all for my home, the black, the gold..." he turned and glanced at the Ajuris 2 World flag before proudly thumping his chest. "...and the orange! Now if you'll all excuse me, the job is not done yet. I've got some robots on the loose that need to be recycled into to toasters."

Naruto leaped from his platform down to the passageway leading underneath the gallery, exited the courtroom on a dead sprint. He was quickly joined by Flash and Lobo, as he slipped on his power ring and switched back to his normal features and Lantern uniform.

"Lobo, you still got that boom tube on your ship?" asked Naruto.

"Yeah." replied the bounty hunter.

Naruto nodded, "Good, we can beat everybody there. You should probably loan Flash an energy blade too."

"I'm pretty sure you just pulled a Kaiser Soze back there." joked the speedster.

Naruto and Lobo just shot him a blank look.

"Kaiser Soze! The Usual Suspects? Kevin Spacey?" Flash shook his head, "You guys need to get out more."

"No, what we need to do is send these Manhunters to the scrap yard." declared Lobo.

Naruto let out an almost sinister laugh, "Some idiot thought it would be a good idea to make a play on the Guardians and Lanterns right in our own backyard. I feel obligated to introduce them to my particular brand of hospitality by shoving my foot right up their ass."

A vicious grin formed on Lobo's face, "You're in fine form today Ninja-man! Those tin cans won't know what hit 'em!"

"Wait you figured who's behind all this? When?" asked Flash.

Naruto shrugged, "Well, I didn't actually it figure out, my ring did. After the bingo book nonsense, I had it analyze on all pertinent facts and it came up with one name..."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

"...it's Brainiac. The designs on the robots back on Ajuris 4's moon were his emblem, I'm sure of it." asserted Superman. He and J'onn were shielded by Arisia's ring as she and John led them back to Oa.

"But, why would Brainiac be behind all this?" questioned Arisia. "It doesn't add up."

"His goal is to fulfill his programming by consuming all knowledge in the universe and destroying it in the process. What could help more with that then both the knowledge and power of the guardians." reasoned J'onn.

"I doesn't matter why he's doing this, we need to shut him and those Manhunters down for good." declared John as he picked up the pace with his ring.

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Due to the trial and other various incidents across sectors, practically the entire core was off base at the moment, leaving only half of the Guardians as the only line of defense against the Manhunters invasion. The furious battle raged on, with the remaining guardians powering the automatic defense systems of the Core's stronghold. The various guns and laser turrets were able to destroy Manhunters with a single blast, but the sheer numbers of the robotic invaders were overwhelming. The Guardians were barely managing to maintain their current positions protecting the central core. Manhunters soon spread out to break into the interior of the towers housing the larger canons and hacked in their circuitry to bring them under Manhunter control. This was the scene that Flash, Lobo, and Naruto arrived to as they stepped out of the boom tube portal.

"So what's the plan?" asked Lobo.

Naruto concentrated more on the task at hand, "The central core is protected by a double force field powered by the guardians. With them only at half strength, the barriers can be broken down easily. We start kicking ass and cause enough havoc to turn their attentions away from the Guardians, and once the others show up we head them off before they can reach the core."

"Fine by me, winner's choice and loser buys!" declared Flash as he blurred across the ground towards an area heavily invested with Manhunters. The robots were hacked to pieces before they could even contemplate reacting, and the Manhunters firing from a distance at the speedster found all their blasts deflected by his energy blades.

With Flash doing his damage at the ground level, Naruto took to the skies flying up to a point high above the battlefield. As the Lantern hovered in the air, a shield of spiraling energy formed around him. The green energy span faster and faster until it emitted a blinding pulse of light. Once the light died down in Naruto's place was a massive flat vortex of spiraling lantern energy.

The Manhunters were puzzled by the sight of it, "This ability is not recorded in our databases."

"It doesn't matter, blast him out of the sky!" commanded another.

The Manhunters fired energy blasts from their staffs at the vortex, only for the blasts to be instantly deflected as soon they approached the spiral. As the spiral reached maximum spinning speed, it began to emit medium sized crescent shaped blasts of energy. First one, then two, then four, eight, and continuing to escalate exponentially. Each attack was on target, at least two colliding with every Manhunter within the vicinity with explosive results. Naruto's Green Spiral Flash attack wiped out over seventy Manhunters in one swoop, but the Lantern didn't stop there. One the spiral attack completed, he formed a humongous construct of a warrior toad and executed the food cart destroyer technique on a dozen other Manhunters.

As toads rained from the sky, the bounty hunter Lobo unloaded his full arsenal on his rival hunters. Lobo had first opened fire with a pair of assault rifles, blasting through every robot in his path. After emptying the mag of the rifle in his right hand, he unwound the chain wrapped around his right wrist and start swinging around the large gutting hook at the end of it. Robot heads, legs, arms, and torsos were instantly destroyed upon contact with hook as it swung around widely. Not satisfied with that, after empty the mag for the other assault rifle, Lobo whipped out a grenade and chucked it right into the middle of a stationary group of Manhunters opening fire on him. The explosion sent a robot head whistling past Naruto's head up above.

"Watch it!" shouted the blond in annoyance.

Superman, J'onn, Arisia, and John arrived amid the havoc being created by Flash, Naruto, and Lobo. For the moment, the majority of the Manhunter forces had turned their attention away from breaking to the central core to deal with the current chaos caused by Flash and company along with the incoming reinforcements. Superman peeled away from the others, utilizing his strength and invulnerability to plow right through Manhunters. Arisia and John cut down the enemy numbers with concentrated laser blasts of Lantern energy. J'onn became intangible and phased into the Manhunter controlled canons, drawing fire away from the ground assaults of Flash and Lobo. The tide of the battle had changed, with only the superior numbers of the Manhunters keeping them on even footing. The advantage quickly flipped into the favor of the Justice League and the Lantern Core upon the arrival of Katma, Hawkgirl, Kilowog, the remaining Guardians, and the other Lanterns from Ajuris 5.

"Kilowog, take the south tower! Arkkis and I will take the north!" commanded Galius as the three lanterns split away from the main group. Hawkgirl made a beeline for one of the Manhunter controlled canons, skillfully dodging incoming fire before bashing the turret to pieces with her mace. With arrival of the cavalry turning the tables of the Manhunters, Lobo, Flash, and Naruto proceeded with the second part of their plan.

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Deep inside the central core the main barrier had already fallen. Only the shielding around the entrance to the core battery remained, and outside it stood the head Manhunter and Brainiac himself, having shed his Manhunter disguise for a modified version of the Manhunter body customized to his preferences with his normal face. The head Manhunter stood guard, as Brainiac used energy draining devices embedded in his palms to drain the weakened Guardians of their remaining energies to fully unlock the central core. Their attention was suddenly diverted to the side section of wall where they heard a loud smashing sound. Cracks appeared in the wall, and a second smash followed the first, causing a section of the wall to blast open. Through the newly created opening stepped out Flash, Lobo, and Naruto.

"I hope this isn't a private party." quipped Flash.

"You are too late; you can't stop us! No one will until we have gained what is rightfully ours, the power that the guardians stole from us! They betrayed us and tried to deny us our destiny, but they have failed!" declared the head Manhunter.

"Is that all you have to say, some whiny crap about the Guardians? They're your last words, you know?" taunted Flash.

Before he could even utter a retort, the Manhunter found himself paralyzed. The reason why soon became evident as his enter body suddenly split in half vertically. Flash quickly jumped into action again, this time slicing and dicing the two halves of the robot into spare parts in the blink of eye. Naruto vaporized the remains of the lead Manhunter with a blast from his ring.

"One down, one to go." proclaimed Flash.

"I will not fall as easily as that inferior machine. They were merely stepping stones to grant me access to all of the core's power and knowledge." asserted Brainiac. "They provided the means for me to plant a copy of myself within the core's mainframe and slowly but surely consume the readily available knowledge. Now I will consume the core's power which will grant me access to all the knowledge of the guardians. In the process I will eradicate both the guardians and the Lantern Core as you have now become obsolete. It is too late for you, I already possess the power 10 green lanterns."

Naruto snorted in disbelief, "Strength of ten Green Lanterns? Do you really expect us to believe that?"

"Believe what you will." replied Brainiac. "You cannot defeat me, surrender now."

Naruto smirked beneath his mask, "No man comes into another man's home and starts telling him what to do. You're out of line! We're not here to bow down to your demands; we're here to fight! So go ahead and do whatever it is you came here to do!"

"Very well, I will terminate you all." responded Brainiac.

"You two go help the others. The three of us fighting this one metal head is like using one of my C4 Tags on an anthill. Besides this is Lantern business first and foremost." ordered Naruto.

A brief look of surprise and recognition flashed across the faces of Flash and Lobo before they immediately turned and hauled ass outta there, in anticipation of what was about to happen.

"No, you will not leave. You will all perish here." declared Brainiac as he fired a deadly energy blast from his eyes at the two fleeing the scene.

Naruto deflected the blast away from them with a barrier shield, "You're fight is with me. The others are of no concern to you. Got it, you toaster headed factory reject!"

"Very well, you will be the first of many Lanterns to fall this day." declared Brainiac.

Naruto let out a condescending chuckle in response, "It's a good thing you machines can't understand fear. If you had any sense at all, you'd all be running away from this planet as fast as you could."

"With all the energy I have absorbed from the guardians, you are no match for me. No one on this planet is." countered Brainiac.

"Well if you really think you have the strength of 10 green lanterns, then prove it. Will all that power, one strong blow now should be enough to defeat me easily." retorted Naruto.

"I have upgraded this android body to a level significantly beyond that of a normal Manhunter. Plus, I have the advantage of studying battle footage and getting readings on your strength capabilities from you battle with the Manhunters back on Earth." asserted Brainiac.

Naruto grinned beneath his mask, "You are as much a machine as they were, besides this bluff about your strength I don't see any reason while you'll do any better than them. You may have studied my battles back on Earth, but I held back significantly in order to prolong that battle."

"Now you're bluffing." challenged Brainiac.

Naruto shrugged, "Maybe, I am? Hard to tell."

Brainiac assumed a battle position, "Enough of this talk."

Naruto did the same, "Yes! Let's go!"

The artificial being charged the Green Lantern, moving to deliver powerful right handed punch. The blow connected, but to Brainiac's surprise, Naruto latched onto his body and suddenly glowed green as his skin turned transparent like a construct. Brainiac had no chance to defend himself as the now revealed clone suddenly exploded in a bright flash of green light.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Flash came speeding out of the compound housing the central core putting everyone nearby on alert, "Move it people, this place is gonna blow!"

John, who had been about fly into the central core compound via a hole in ceiling, froze in his tracks, "What?"

"Move it, John!" shouted the real Naruto as he came rocketing out the hole dragging Lobo along behind him. On instinct Stewart followed just as the explosion hit and a shock wave of energy sent the trio crashing into the roof of a neighboring tower. Smoke and debris poured out of the central core from the aftermath of the explosion. After regaining his composure Naruto had his ring to scan the area of the explosion and found no trace of Brainiac.

"Please tell me you did not set off explosives inside the central core." grumbled John as he staggered to his feet.

"The central core can afford to withstand a big it, I had make sure there was enough power in that blast to vaporize his body in one shot." defended Naruto.

There was a sudden rumbling from the central core battery causing John to shoot a glare at Naruto, "Central core can afford to take a hit big hit? Bullshit!"

Lobo directed their attention up into the sky behind them, "That wasn't us..."

A distorted image of Brainiac's face suddenly overshadowed the energy that shot out from the central core battery into sky. It started off slightly distorted before quickly stabilizing. The remaining guardians had just reached the core battery as Brainiac established control before draining them of their energy.

"All is lost..." gasped the last Guardian to lose consciousness. John and Naruto flew back in through a hole in rooftop and landed in front of the battery just as he lost consciousness.

"We were too late before, he'd already managed to get inside to the core. That other body was merely a diversion." muttered the blond.

**"I am now everywhere. I am everything. I cannot be beaten."** proclaimed Brainiac.

John wasn't fazed, "You are a fool. The battle was over before it ever begun if this was your endgame."

**"You're bluffing is meaningless. Surrender now, the power of the core is under my control."** declared Brainiac. **"Wait, what are you doing!"**

Naruto had lifted his hand into the air, absorbing the power from the core into his ring.

"What's the matter? Not so confident anymore? It sure was a different story when you were sucking the life out of the Guardians!" taunted Naruto.

**"I am Brainiac, I cannot be beaten. You have lost, the core is mine!"** defiantly proclaimed Brainiac,

"Not on my watch! You want this power, you gotta go through us!" bellowed John as he joined Naruto in absorbing the lantern energy into his ring.

"Count me, in too!" announced Katma as she dropped down from above and joined them.

"Don't forget about us either!" declared Arisia as she and Kilowog were right behind Katma.

**"You are only delaying the inevitable. I cannot be defeated!" **proclaimed Brainiac.

"Let's go people, you know the drill!" barked John as he began the oath. "In brightest day, in blackest night..."

The electrical image of Brainiac overshadowing the Lantern Core began to distort as they absorbed more and more power into their rings. Katma, Arisia, Kilowog and Naruto all joined John in the chant, _**"No evil shall escape my sight! Let those who worship evil's might..."**_

**"No! Th-t-this can't be ha-hap-happening to me! Cannot control, cannot c-con-concentrate! I am Br-b-brainiac! I will b-b-be back!"** cried out Brainiac as he was absorbed into the power rings along with the rest of the Lantern Energy.

The five Lanterns to aim with their rings and fired a massive collective blast of energy back into the core as they finished the oat_h, **"BEWARE MY POWER, GREEN LANTERN'S LIGHT!"**_

**"Nooo!"** cried out the last remnants of Brainiac within energy as he was purged from the core. Kilowog and Arisia added as nice touch with some fireworks sparking off from the core in celebration of their victory.**  
><strong>

"Hey! That still only counts as one!" shouted Flash.

Having regained their powers from the core battery's reboot, the Guardians approached Naruto, "Once again you have performed a great service to the Green Lantern Core. Thank you, Naruto Uzumaki."

Naruto waved off the praise, "There's no need to thank me; I was just doing my job, nothing more, nothing less. And besides I couldn't have done it without the rest of these guys or the Justice League either. It was a team effort, all the way around."

Arisia shook her head in disbelief, "The guy saves the Guardians and the Green Lantern Core from possible total annihilation, and shrugs it off likes it's another day at the office."

Kilowog shrugged, "That's the poozer for ya."

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

The Manhunter uprising had turned into a complete route. Not a single machine survived, as the parts of their dismembered bodies laid all over the central stronghold of the Oa. The Lanterns from the cantina had gathered around Hawkgirl, impressed by here handiwork on the battlefield.

"You sure are some fighter lady." complemented Zed.

"Yeah, but we already knew that." added Arkkis.

As Naruto walked past them to join the rest of the league and Lobo, they stopped him.

"I guess we were wrong about you, Uzumaki. We should have known better." admitted Zed.

The gathered Lanterns waited for a response, but Naruto simply made a show digging into his ear with his pinky and flicking away some earwax. He then looked up, startled as if he'd just noticed them, "Oh, I'm sorry. Did you say something? No? I'll be on my way then."

"Ooh! It burns doesn't it!" taunted Arisia as she arrived with Kilowog to rub it their faces. All their heads dropped immediately, knowing they wouldn't hear the end of this one for a long time.

As Naruto approached the League they all noticed the thoughtful look on his face.

"Are you alright, Naruto?" asked J'onn.

The blond waved him off, "I'm fine. All's well that ends well and something or other. I just wanted to say thanks to all of you. I only got the ball rolling; this was a team effort from everyone. You guys really went beyond the call of duty today. And even though I don't have to say it, still I want say thank you and not just on behalf of the core. I personally am very grateful for all of your help."

Hawkgirl smirked, "Watching you squirm in court? I couldn't pay for better entertainment."

Superman simply smiled, "Anytime."

Flash grinned and patted him on the back, "Yeah, what are friends for? Especially friends who pay for dinner!"

Naruto grinned, "Oh, so you did worse than Lobo? You're buying!"

"There's no way either of you chumps out did the main man's grand total of 107!" interjected Lobo.

"107? Hah, I got 142!" gloated Flash.

Naruto swore, "Shit! I got 142, too!"

"Aw man, we tied? Well, I killed the lead hunter, so this is my win." reasoned Flash.

"No way! I got Brainiac, who was behind it all. It's my win!" countered Naruto.

"Trust me on this, GL. Let me take this win, I've got the perfect place in mind. We're going back to Earth and we're going to get kicked out of an Applebee's." proclaimed Flash.

Naruto and Lobo shot each other a blank look before deadpanning, "What's Applebee's?"

Flash simply chuckled and wrapped an arm around their shoulders, "Gentleman, you've got a lot to learn about the great treasures of the universe. But, have no fear! I, the great Flash, am here to show you the ropes!"

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><p><strong><span>X-X-X-X-X-Omake-Flash-Takes-the-Stand-X-X-X-X-X<span>**

After the riveting examination and cross-examination to open up the trial, the case took a brief detour when Naruto called Flash to the stand.

"Now, where were we two weeks ago on Friday night at 7pm?" questioned Naruto.

"We were at Asashi Ramen in Star City. We'd just stopped that bank robbery and both had 15 bowls each, good times." recalled Flash.

"That's right. Now could you enlighten the court to the house rules of Asashi Ramen?" asked Naruto.

The speedster narrowed his eyes, "Well, it's not just an Asashi Ramen house rule, it's a universal law of all Ramen serving establishments: no evil will come from a lover a ramen. It just can't happen."

"So based on this fact, there's basically no way I could be guilty of the accused crime." asserted Naruto.

Flash nodded, "Absolutely no chance."

"Objection, this is absolute nonsense and has no admissibility in court." interjected the prosecutor.

"Blasphemer! Heathen! Show your true face demon!" shouted Flash. Out of nowhere, the speedster pulled out a holy water container filled with ramen broth and began sprinkling it on the prosecutor, "The power of the broth compels you! The power of the broth compels you!"

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><p><strong>AN: Alright, it took me way too long to update this chapter, but hey shit happens in life. So enjoy the super long update with omake, and review!**


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